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A LECTURE 



ON THfi 



PRESENT RELATIONS 



OF 

FREE LABOR TO SLAVE LABOR, 

IN TROPICAL AND SEMI-TROPICAL COUNTRIES: 

PRESENTING 

AN OUTLINE OF THE COMMERCIAL FAILURE OF WEST INDIA EMANCI- 
PATION, AND ITS EFFECTS UPON SLAVERY AND THE SLAVE 
TRADE, TOGETHER WITH ITS FINAL EFFECT UPON 
COLONIZATION TO AFRICA. 

ADDRESSED TO THE 

CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION 
OF THE STATE OF OHIO, 1850. 



By DAVID CHRISTY, "^fj 



'W 



AGENT OF THE AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETV. 



CINCINNATI: 
PRINTED BY J. A. & U. P. JAMES. 

STEREOTYPED BY A. C. JAMES. 

r^ • 18 5 0. 



■ Cssv 



TO THE MEMBERS OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION 
OF THE STATE OF OHIO. 

Gentlemen : 

It had been in contemplation, during your Summer 
Session at Columbus, to ask the privilege of addressing you on the sub- 
ject of the Constitutional provision which should be made to secure 
Legislative aid for such of the colored people of Ohio as may wish to 
emigrate to Liberia. But your early adjournment prevented the execu- 
tion of that design. After consultation with some of your number, it 
has been determined, that the Lecture, prepared for that purpose, be 
printed and circulated among the members of the Convention, in advance 
of their meeting in December. 

An apology would be due, on account of the extent of the investiga- 
tions embraced in the Lecture, were it not that we live in a matter-of- 
fact age, when the reasons offered in support of every measure, proposed 
for public acceptance, must amount to demonstration. The present 
Lecture is designed as a sequel to the two heretofore delivered before 
the Legislature, on the subject of Colonization, and which were laid 
upon your desks at Columbus. It is believed that every unprejudiced 
mind must be convinced, after examining the subject of Colonization to 
Liberia, in all its bearings, that it offers to the colored people an inher- 
itance almost infinitely more valuable than any other scheme that has 
been proposed for ameliorating their condition. It is also believed that 
the time has arrived when the question of the. emigration of the colored 
people from this country, or their permanent residence among us, must he 
settled. If the first measure be not adopted, then the public peace and 
safety demand that ample provision for their elevation, to equal social 
and political equality, under the last, be speedily made. But if it be the 
public will, that the African population of our country be secured in the 
peaceable possession of a free government of their own, then immediate 
action should be taken to promote that object. To delay the adoption of 
measures for encouraging emigration to Liberia, affords time for their 
increase, and makes the work more difficult to accomplish. The success 
of our proposed Colony from this State to Ohio in Africa, will prompt 
other States to similar efforts, and the cause of Colonization be greatly 
advanced. But as the extent of our success, in planting our Ohio Col- 
ony, must depend upon the amount of pecuniary aid that xvill be given by 
the Stale itself, it is respectfully urged that you will give the proposition, 
brought forward in the close of the Lecture, all the consideration that 
its importance demands. 

Your obedient servant, 

DAVID CHRISTY, 

Agent American Colonization Society for Ohio. 
Oxford, Ohio, Oct. 1, 1850. 



A LECTURE 

ON THE . 

PRESENT RELATIONS 

O F 

FREE LABOR TO SLAVE LABOR. 



INTRODUCTION. 

In our two preceding lectures, we have presented the leading inci- 
dents connected with the enslavement of the African race, and pointed 
out thegreatadvantages secured to them in tlie United States, over 
those afforded in any other country. The facts presented therein 
also show, that the work of Africa's redemption from barbarism has 
been encouragingly commenced by our Colonization scheme. It is 
natural, therefore, that we shouUl cast about to see whether the im- 
pelhng forces, tending to promote and perfect this great work, possess 
sufficient power to insure its success. For it must be confessed, that, 
in view of the vustness of the work to be accompUshed — including 
the secular and religious education of perhaps more than one hundred 
and sixty milHons of savage men — if no more numerous agencies can 
be brought to tlie execution of the task, than the noble litde band of 
Liberians, hope would almost sicken and die, in contemplating the 
length of time that must elapse before civilization and the gospel can 
be made to reacli the whole population of Africa. 

In tracing the causes now in operation, which must rapidly propel 
the work of Africa's civilization, we find that the facts may be brought 
most forcibly to view, by contrasting the present relations of Free 
Labor to Slave Labor, in the cultivation of those tropical and senii- 
iropical products, upon which slave labor has been and is now chiefly 
employed. 

We may be told — indeed we have already been warned by a 
friend, to whom the statistics have been shown — that by arraying such 
facts, before the public, as we have collated, we shall greatly strengthen 
slavery. But we must beg leave to say, that we apprehend no such 
results. The facts are such as the friends of Jifrican freedom, every 
where, should know, to enable them to adopt some practical and 
efficient remedy for the evils of the slave trade and slavery. It is 
not necessary to publish the fact to the slaveholder of Cuba and 
Brazil, that free labor, in die English and French West Indies, has 



4 IntroducUon. 

failed to supply to commerce an amount of tropical commodities 
equal to what had been furnished by slave labor before emancipation. 
They already know this fact. Slaveholders, whether engaged in 
the production of cotton, sugar, or coffee, have known it, and profited 
by it. The slave trader, abso, has known the result of West India 
emancipalion, and has quadrupled his business and his profits by 
possessing that knowledge. And shall the Philanthropist, alone, be 
debarred from knowing truths of such moment ? 

The facts which we shall present may be unwelcome to some, yet 
they cannot be controverted. They may detract somewhat from the 
honors claimed by many who boast of their success in checking the 
progress of slavery, and may prove that they were more benevolent 
than wise, but it cannot be avoided. The day has come for decisive 
action upon the subject of the suppression of the slave trade, and the 
civilization of Africa. All schemes hitherto adopted have signally 
failed. The wisest statesmen have been baffled and defeated in their 
attempts. It is time, therefore, that a review of the actions of the 
past should be taken, and the results spread out before the public. In 
the execution of this task, if faithfully performed, it is believed that 
there may be found some common ground upon which all the friends 
of Africa and of humanity may cordially cooperate. 

The evidence which we have been enabled to collect upon this 
subject, is all from undoubted authorities, and we believe will clearly 
establish the following propositions : 

I. That Free Labor, in tropical and semi-tropical countries, is tailing 
to furnish to the markets of the world, in any thing like adequate 
quantities, those commodities upon which slave labor is chiefly 
employed. 

II. That the governments of England, France, and the United States, 
at the present moment, are compelled, from necessity, to consume 
slave labor products, to a large extent, and thus still continue to be 
the principal agents which aid in extending and perpetuating slavery 
and the slave trade. 

III. That the legislative measures adopted for the destruction of the 
slave trade and slavery, especially by England, have tended to 
increase and extend the systems they were designed to destroy. 

IV. That the governments named, cannot hope to escape from the 
necessity of consuming the products of slave labor, except by call- 
ing into active service, on an extensive scale, the free labor of 
countries not at present producing ihe commodities upon which 
slave labor is employed. 

V. That Africa is the principal field where free labor can be made 
to compete, successfully, with slave labor, in the production of 
exportable tropical commodities. 



Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 5 

VI. That there are moral forces and commercial considerations now 
in operation, which will, necessarily, impel Christian governments 
to exert their influence for the civilization of Africa, and the pro- 
motion of the prosperity of the Republic of Liberia, as the prin- 
cipal agency in this great work. ; and that in these facts lies our 
encouragement to persevere in our Colonization eflxtrts. 

VII. That all these agencies and influences being brought to bear 
upon the civilization of Africa, from the nature of its soil, climate, 
products, and population, we are forced to believe that a mighty 
people will ultimately rise upon that continent, taking rank with 
the most powerful nations of the earth, and vindicate the character 
of the African race before the world. 

Not the least interesting result, growing out of the investigations 
upon which we are entering, when taken in connection with those of 
our two preceding lectures, is the conviction that has been produced 
in our own mind, and which we believe will be made upon all, that 
England and the United States, the two governments at present most 
capable of exerting the greatest moral influence over Africa, and of 
calling into activity her latent but giant energies, are at this moment 
involved in positions of so much embarrassment, in consequence of 
their having been connected with the slave trade and slavery, that 
they cannot extricate themselves, but by the civilization of Africa. 

France, also, in the case of her former colony of Hayti, has had 
poured out to her a portion of the cup of bitterness, which, it seems, 
must be pressed to the lips of all the nations who have participated 
in oppressing Africa. By her late act of emancipation, in her re- 
maining tropical colonies, France has still farther embarrassed herself, 
and, like England and the United States, must soon be compelled 
either to supply herself almost exclusively with slave-grown cotton, 
and other tropical products, or lend her aid in promoting free labor 
cultivation in tropical Africa. 

In this remarkable condition of things, we are reminded of the 
great truth, that God presides among the nations, and overrules their 
actions to promote his own purposes of judgment and of mercy to 
mankind, and that governments, like individuals, are hindered in 
their designs here and have free progress there, only so far as corres- 
ponds with his great scheme of displaying his hatred of sin, vindica- 
ting his justice, and of manifesting his love to a fallen world, and his 
determination to redeem it to himself. 

A brief review of some of the leading events, relatino- to the 
action of the nations of Europe, in their connection with the slave 
trade and slavery, will bring us to the statement of the facts upon 
which we base our propositions. 

The records of history put it beyond all question, that the rapid 
rise of Great Britain, during the 18th century, which secured to her 
the superiority over other nations in naval power, in commerce, and 
ultimately in manufactures, was due, principally, to her haviii<r 



6 Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 

acquired by the treaty of Utrecht, 1713, the monopoly of the slave 
trade. The traffic in slaves being, by this treaty, placed under the 
control of England, her rivals were deprived of the means of supply- 
ing slaves to their tropical possessions, excepting through her mer- 
chants, while she could add to her colonies any number required by 
the planters. And when we call to mind the fact, that the average 
period of life of the imported African slave, as a profitable laborer in 
the West India colonies, is not over seven years, it will be seen thai 
this treaty most effectually crippled the rivals of England, and of ne- 
cessity gave to her, as is the boast of McQueen, the principal monop- 
oly of the markets of the world for her West India tropical products. 
And, indeed, so seriously were the other powers affected by this 
measure, that in 1739, Spain paid to Great Britain a half million of 
dollars to secure a release of her monopoly for the remaining four 
years to which it extended ; and thus the nations of Europe once 
more became equal participants in this unholy commerce. 

A true idea of the immense value of England's commercial inter- 
ests, which were based upon the slave trade and slavery, may be 
learned from the fact, that in 1807, the export products of her West 
India possessions employed 250,000 tons of English shipping, and 
that these islands sustained a population which consumed annually 
$17,500,000 worth of British manufactures.* It was the possession 
of such resources as these, coupled with her East India acquisitions, 
that enabled England, whose navy at the opening of tlie 18th century 
was one thousand guns less than that of France, to increase it in one 
hundred years to near its present extent, and shordy after the begin- 
ning of the present century, to bid defiance to the combined oppo- 
sition of the powers of Europe. But it must not be forgotten, thai 
much of this wealth, securing to England such prosperity and such 
glory as she attained, was wrung from African sinews in her West 
India colonies. 

But now begins the era when the power of Great Britain is to 
become arrayed on the side of African freedom. The year 1808 
terminated the connection of both Great Britain and the United 
States with the slave trade. Whatever may be said of the motives 
prompting these governments to this act, it must be admitted, that a 
great work of philanthropy was accomplished. But its prohibition 
by these powers, unfortunately, left the monopoly of the traffic in 
slaves in the hands of Spain and Portugal, who prosecuted it with 
the greatest activity, and soon made the soil of Cuba and of Brazil to 
croan beneath the cultivation of those exportable tropical products 
which England had so successfully commenced, and so advantage- 
ously prosecuted. Being then in its infancy, the government of the 
United States covdd exert but litde influence upon other nations, and, 
consequently, the control of this great question rested with England. 
It was a capital error in her policy, to neglect securing an abandon- 
ment of the slave trade by the other Eui'opean governments. Their 

* Blackwood's Mag., 1848, p. 5. 



Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 7 

success in rivaling her in tropical cultivation, together with the sub- 
sequent legislative errors of Great Britain, and the consequent de- 
struction of the prosperity of her West India colonies, has been fully 
discussed in our first lecture. Since its publication, however, many 
additional facts have been ascertained, and many new developments 
have been made, in connection with English and French West India 
emancipation, which enable us to understand more clearly its work- 
ings, and to foresee more certainly the linal effects of that great work 
of philanthropy upon the African race. 

The prohibition of the slave trade, and the emancipation of her 
West India slaves,* greatly embarrassed the commercial interests of 
England, and forced her to grapple with the giant evils of the slave 
trade and slavery, and to attempt their destruction. But each step 
taken, after tlie prohibition of the slave trade, while it certainly pro- 
moted, locallij, the cause of human liberty, dealt a death-blow to some 
of the vital interests of the government. And, as if the Almighty 
had designed to record, in letters of living light, his disapproval of the 
motives prompting England to enslave the African race, diese blows 
have fallen upon the identical interests which had been created and 
built up by the slave trade and slavery, viz: her West India sugar, 
cotton, and coffee cultivation, and the markets for her manufactures 
which these islands afforded. 

Previous to 1808, England's West India colonies were supplied 
with laborers from Africa, by means of the slave trade. The slaves 
in these islands numbered 800,000, in that year; but in 1834, when 
their emancipation had been effected, there were only 700,000. t 
This diminution of the slaves, while it very seriously affected the 
exports from the colonies, served to reveal the true character of West 
India slavery, and the means by which colonial prosperity had been 
sustained, and can only be accounted for from overworking, and the 
great disparity of the sexes always consequent upon the supply of 
laborers by the slave trade. ± 

After the supply of slave labor had been cut off, by the prohibition 
of the slave trade, it was discovered that a vast decrease of exports 
was taking place in the colonies. The remedy proposed for this evil 
was emancipation ; by means of which it was conceived that the lib- 
erated slaves would, as freemen, perform twice the labor that had been 
wrung out of Uiem while under the lash, and also that double the 
quantity that had been supplied, of British manufactures, while in 
slavery, would be required to clothe them if free.§ Such a conceit 
as this could never have originated but in a mind entertaining unsound 
views of human nature, and unacquainted with the impossibility of 
controlling, by moral suasion, a half-civilized or savage people, and of 
inducing them to give up lung-established habits. But the scheme 
was adopted, and England committed her second legislative error in 



* 8ee Lecture 1, for a full discussion of tliis subject. 

+ See Life of Buxton, and our First Lecture, p. 4L 

J See Lecture 1, p. 41. § See Lect. 1, p. 39. 



8 Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 

anti-slavery effort. The emancipation of the West India slaves 
was decreed in 1833, and fully executed in 1838. 

The movements of France in relation to African freedom, must 
also be noticed, to obtain a clear view of the present relations of free 
labor to slave labor. The history of the island of St. Domingo sup- 
plies materials of great interest upon this subject. The French por- 
tion of that island, in 1789, consisting of 30,826 whites, and 27,548 
free colored persons,* had 480,000 slaves t employed in agriculture, 
and furnished three-fifths of the produce of all the French West India 
colonies, amounting in value to more than $50,000,000, and consumed, 
of French manufactures, $49,430,000. J The Spanish part of the 
island employed in agriculture only 15,000 slaves. § 

The political troubles of St. Domingo began in 1790, between the 
mulattoes and the whites, the slaves remaining industrious, quiet, and 
orderly. But in August, 1792, the slaves joined in the rebellion, and 
the massacre of the whites was commenced. The most dreadful 
scenes of cruelty and bloodshed continued to be enacted until 1801, 
when a constitution was adopted, and the island, under the name of 
Hayti, formally proclaimed an independent neutral power. At the 
close of this year, Bonaparte made an effort to reconquer the island, 
and, in order to succeed, the French general, Le Clerc, first attempted 
to restore the planters to their former authority over the negroes, 
many of whom, in the preceding struggles, had been granted their 
freedom ; but, failing in this, he was forced, as a last resort, on the 
25th of April, 1802, to "proclaim liberty and equality to all the in- 
habitants, without regard to color." The Haytien chieftains, Touis- 
sant, Dessalines, Christophe, &c., being immediately deserted by the 
blacks, were forced to submit, and the French sovereignty was again 
recognized throughout Hayti. As a first step to deprive the people 
of their efficient leaders, Le Clerc seized Touissant and his family, m 
the night, about the middle of May, and hurried them on board a ves- 
sel, which sailed immediately for France. ^ This act of perfidy at 
once aroused the population to resistance, and the French, after a loss 
of 40,000 men, by disease and war, were compelled to capitulate, 
Nov., 1803, and, with a remnant of the army, of only 8,000 men, 
beg leave to depart from the island. Dessalines now assumed the 
authority, and a general massacre of the remaining French inhabitants 
took place.** 

From this period, 1803, dates the independence of Hayti. Its 
population was, at this time, 348,000.tt Christophe was declared 
kino- in 1811. Pelion succeeded him and died in 1818, when Boyer 
came into power and annexed the Spanish part of the Island. From 
this period until 1843, when Boyer abdicated, the Island enjoyed a 
fair degree of tranquility. The legislation was rigidly directed to 



* Westminster Rev., 1850, p. 261. + Macgregor, p. 1152. 
X Blackwood's Mag., I8l8, p. 6. § Macgregor, p. 1152. 

yf Confined to a loathsome dungeon, he died the next year. 
** Sec Life of Benjamin Lundy, and also Macgregor. 
tt Macgregor, p. 1152. 



Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 9 

secure the industry of the inhabitants, but witli little success as we 
shall see. 

In 1848, the whole of the slaves in the remaining French colonies 
were emancipated by a decree of the Republic. Their population, 
including free persons and slaves, we' find stated as follows :* 



Colonies. 


Free. 


Slaves. 

75,330 
89,349 
62,154 


Colonies. 


Free. 


Slaves. 


Martinique, ..(1846), 
Gaudaloupe,. . .(do), 

Bourban, (do), 

Nossi Be and 

Nossi Cumba, .(do). 


47,352 
40,428 
45,512 


Nossi Falli and 
Nossi Mitsou, (1846), 
St. Mary Mag- 
dalene, (do), 

Senegal, (1845), 

Algiers, (estimate). 


14,512 

3,465 

8,427 


7,698 

2,415 
10,113 
10,000 


Total, 




159,696 


257,059 













We are now enabled to state the amount of the colored popula- 
tion, in the English and French colonies, to whom freedom has 
been secured, and upon whom, since their emancipation, free labor 
tropical cultivation has devolved. It was as follows : 

British West Indies, . . . 1834, 700,000 

Hayti, 1804, 348,000 

Other French Colonies, 1848, 25 7,000 

Total 1,30 5,000 

Here we shall terminate our preliminary historical retrospect and 
proceed to demonstrate our first proposition, which is this : 

I. That free labor, in tropical and semi-tropical countries, is failing 
to furnish to the markets of the world, in anything like adequate 
quantities, those commodities upon which slave labor is chiefly 
employed. 

We shall commence with the British West Indies. The following 
table embraces the exports from Jamaica alone. We cannot ascer- 
tain the amount exported from the whole English West India col- 
onies, including the period of the slave trade. But as Jamaica is 
much the largest and most important Island, and as nearly the same 
results have followed in all the islands, it may justly be taken as the 
type of the whole, and as fully exhibiting the influence which the 
legislation of the mother country, on the subject of the slave trade 
and slavery, in its several stages of progress, has exerted upon her 
own commerce and manufactures, and upon the pro^:^perity of the 
colonies. The quantities slated are tlie average annual exports for 
periods oi five years each, embracing the last five years of the slave 
trade, the last five of slavery, and the first five of freedom. \ We 

*Anti-Slavery Reporter. 

fWhere the sugar is given in hogsheads, we have reduced it to pounds, esti- 
mating the hhd. at 1600' lbs. nelt. 



10 Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 



are also enabled to bring down the results to the close of 1848, 
including the three last years separately. 



Years of Exports. 


lbs Sugar. 


P. Rum. 

50,426 
35,505 
14,185 
14,;i95 
18,077 
20,194 


lbs Coffee. 


Ann. Value. 


Ann. average, 1803 to 1807* 

«' " 1829 to 1833* 

1839 to 1843* 

« exports I846t 

1847t 

«« « 1848t 


211,139,200 
152,564,800 
67,924,800 
57,956,800 
77,686,400 
67,539,200 


23,625,377 
17,645,602 
7,412,498 
6,047,150 
6,421,122 
5,684,921 


$19,263,105 

13,957,390 

6.066,420 









*Blackwood's Mag., 1848, p. 225. 

tLittel's Living Age, 1850, No. 309, p. \^^.— Letters of Mr. Bigelow. 

We add also the exports from British Guiana, because it includes 
the article of cotton, and exhibits the decline in its production.* 



Years. 


lbs. Sugar. 


Pun. Rum. 


Ck's. Molas. 


lbs. Colton. 


Coffee, lbs. Dutch, 


1827 
1830 
1833 
1836 
1839 
1843 


113,868,800 

111,248,200 

101,464,000 

91,427,200 

61,585,600 

57,180,800 


22,362 
32,939 

17,824 

24,202 

16^070 

8,296 


28,226 
21,189 
44,508 
37,088 
12,134 
24,937 


6,361,600 
2,169,200 
1,479,600 
1,278,400 
541,600 
9,600 


8,063,752 
9,502,756 
5,704,482 
4,^01,352 
1,583,250 
l,42d,l00 



The rate at which the cultivation of cotton has declined in the 
British West Indies, is indicated by the imports of that article from 
them into England, in the periods stated below, t 



4,640,414 



3,449,247 



2,401,685 



2,040,428 



1833 



2,084,826 



2,296,525 



427,529 



*McQueen, see Lecture, 1. p. 37. 
The total amount of the imports of sugar and coffee, into England, 
from all her West India Colonies, but not embracing the period of 
the slave trade, were as follows :.-j: 



Years of imporlaiion. 



Ann. aver, in the 5 yrs, 1827 to 1831,. 

» .< " " 1832 to 1836,. 

,, « « " 1837 to 1841,. 

» << '< " 1842 to 1846,. 

In the year 1847, 

«« •' 1848.§ 



lbs. Sugar. lbs. Coffee 



448,765,520 
411,SG9,056 
313,570,144 
277,2.^2,400 
358,379,952 
313,306,112 



26,670,601 

19,904,536 

13,473,389 

7,985,153 

6,770,792 



*Blackwood'sMag.,1848,p.225. fSee table of imports, p. 16, of this Lecture 
jWestminster Review, 1850, p. 279. ^London Quar. Review, 1850, p. 97. 



Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 



11 



"In 1831 the British West India Colonies produced 459,622,600 
lbs. of sugar;" being nearly eleven millions of pounds more than the 
average of that and the preceding four years. This amount seems lo 
have been snflicient for tlie home consumption, because the importa- 
tion of 65,320,192 lbs. of foreign sugar, during that year, was for 
re-export only* But in 1848, such had been the increased con- 
sumption of that article, in the seventeen years which had elapsed, 
that the imports of sugar amounted to 769,604,416 lbs., of which 
there was taken for consumption 690,213,552 Ibs.t Of this amount 
the British West Indies supplied only 313,306,1 12 lbs,t and 229,748,- 
096 lbs. were oi foreign slave grown sugar. ^ We shall here close 
our statements in relation to tlie failure of free labor cultivation in 
the British West India Colonies, and turn to those ol' France. 

The following statistical table of exports from Hayti,^ tells, but 
too forcibly, the results of emancipation upon the commercial pros- 
perity of that Island, and shows the magnitude of the loss sustained 
by France in having this colony wrested from her. It includes the 
exports of the three principal products from 1789 to 1841. 



Years. 


11)S. Sugar. 


U.*. Coffee. 


llis. Cotton. 


Remarks. 


1789 


141,089,931 


76,835,219 


7,004,274 


Island tranqui! 




1790 


163,318,810 


68,151,180 


6,286,126 


Wh'saiid Mill. 


at war. 


1801 


18,534,112 


43,420,270 


2,480,340 


Slaves freed in 


1793. 


1818 


5,443,765 


26,065,200 


474,118 


Boyer iu power. 


18J9 


3,790,300 


29,240,919 


216,103 


» « 




1820 


2,517,289 


35,137,7.'i9 


346,839 


(( ii 




1821 


600,934 


29,925.951 


820,563 


a <( 




1822 


200,451 


24,235,372 


592,368 


(< <( 




1823 


14,920 


33,802,837 


332,256 


«< « 




1824 


5,106 


44,269,084 


1,028,045 


>I <c 




1825 


2,020 


36,034,300 


815,697 


« (( 




182G 


32,864 


32,189,784 


620,972 


« (( 




1835 


1,097 


48,352,371 


1,649,717 


Ex's for whole 


Island. 


1836 


16,199 


37,662,672 


1,072,555 


(( (( 




1837 




30,845,400 


1,013,171 


(( (( 




1838 




49,820,241 




i( It 




1839 




7,889,092 


1,635,420 


(( (• 




1840 


741 


46,126,272 


922,575 


Republic. 




1841 


1,363 


34,114,717 


1,591,454 


" 




1848 


very little 


33,600,000t 


» 













*No statement yet received, f Campbell, Arnott &, Co. 

The assertion of Independence by the people of Hayti. and the 
almost immediate abandonnu^nt of sugar cultivation in the Island, at 
once deprived France of tliree-fiflhs of her colonial imports of that 
article, 'i'o supply the deficiency, the Emperor Naj)oleon made the 
attempt, on a grand scale, to produce beet-root sugar in France itself. 
But this experiment did not meet the public wants, and the cultivation 



^London Quar. Review, 1850, p. 97. \lh. p. 88. Jib. p. 97. 
irMacgregor, London Ed. 1847. 



§Ib.p 



12 Present Belations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 

of sugar, by slave labor, was necessarily rapidly increased in the 
remaining French colonies. The slave trade being actively prose- 
cuted at that period, it afforded a full supply of slaves to the French 
planters, and the exports of sugar, from her remaining colonies, must 
have rapidly increased, as we find, that in the first nine months of 
1847, they had increased to an amount exceeding by five millions 
and a half of pounds, the exports from Hayti, for the whole year, 
in 1790. 

The effects of the recent emancipation of her slaves by the French 
Republic* bids fair to prove as disastrous to the commerce of her col- 
onies and to the interests of France, as were the lesults of the rebel- 
lion of Hayfi. We find it stated, in the current news of the day, 
that, " according to official data, the amount of sugar imported into 
France, from her colonies in Guiana, the West Indies, and the Island 
of La Reunion, has fallen from 168,884,177 lbs., the quantity im- 
ported during the first nine months of 1847, to 96,929,336 lbs., for 
the same period of the year 1849, being a falling off, for the nine 
months, of 71,854,841 lbs. 

We wish here to state distinctly that our leading object in pre- 
senting, so fully the evidences of the failure of free labor tropical 
cultivation, is not to prove that slavery shonkl not be abolished ; be- 
cause that would involve the absurdity of insisting, that one-third the 
world should be enslaved, to secure to the other two-thirds their 
coffee, sugar, and cotton, at a reduced price. But our aim is to 
impress the great truth on the mind of the christian public, ^/m/ mere 
personal freedom is insufficient to elevate and ennoble an unen- 
lightened people, and that intellectual and moral culture should 
accompany all emancipation schemes, otherwise they must fail in 
the accomplishment of the great good ivhich personal freedom, 
under other circumstances, secures to man. 

Having now presented the principal instances where free labor has 
failed in tropical cultivation, upon territory formerly tmploying slave 
labor, we may pause and state the extent of that failure, so far as to 
include the articles of coffee, cotton, and sugar. But as we have not 
had access to any statement of the exports from the whole of the 
British West India Islands, for the period of the slave trade, we must 
take those of Jamaica as the type of the whole. From 1807 to 1831 
the exports of sugar fell off, in Jamaica, 38,yYo per cent., and that of 
coffee 33, y\. By adding this amount to the exports from all the 
Islands in 1831, will give us their probable exports in 1807. The 
article of cotton cannot be brought under this rule, for want of accu- 
rate data, previous to 1829. 

The deficit of free labor tropical cultivation, as compared with 
slave labor while sustained by the slave trade, including the territorial 
limits upon which England and France have liberated their bondsmen, 
stands as follows : — a starUing result, truly, to those who expected 
emancipation to work well commercially. 

*Prescnt Lecture p. 19. 



Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 



13 



Slave Labor. 


Years. 

1807 
1790 


1I)S. Sugar. 


lbs. Coffee. 


lbs. Coiioii. 


British West Indies, . . , . 
Hayti 


636,025,043 
163,318,810 


31,610,764 
76,835,219 


4,640,414* 
7,2b() 126 






Total, 


809,344,453 


108,245,983 


11,926,540 






Free Labor 

British West Indies 

Hayti, 


1848 
1848 


313,306,112 

very little 


6,770,792 
34,114,717* 


427,529t 
1,591, 454 J 






Total, 




313,306,112 


40,885,509 


2,018,983 










496,038,341 


67,360,474 


9,907,557 







• 1829. tl840. il847. 

We have not incliifled the French Islands emancipated in 1848, 
because the information possessed in relation to them is not suffi- 
ciently accurate. When the decline of free labor, in them, reaches 
its maximum, at least another 100,000,000 lbs. of sugar must be 
added to the sum of free labor failures.* 

To understand the bearing which this decrease of production, by 
Free Labor, has upon the interests of the African people, it must be 
remembered that the consumption of sugar has not diminished, but 
increased, vastly, and that for every hogshead that free labor sugar is 
diminished, a hogshead of slave labor sugar is demanded to supply 
its place ; and more than this : for every additional hogshead de- 
manded by the increased consumption of sugar, an additional one, of 
slave labor production, must be furnished, because tlie world will not 
do without sugar. It must be noticed, also, that, at the present 
moment, the greater portion of all this doidde demand for sugar, falls 
upon the people of color. It seems to be a settled rule, that if the 
African race will not supply to the world its sugar, by voluntary 
labor, receiving for themselves all the profits on its production; then 
the world compels them to do it, by compulsory labor, and votes the 
whole profits to the ichite man who applies the whip that stimu- 
lates them to industry. 

These remarks will apply to coffee and cotton, also, or to any 
other exportable tropical commodity upon which slave labor is em- 
ployed. We now close our investigations in relation to our first pro- 
position, believing that we have fully demonstrated its truthfulness, 
and shall proceed to the second. 



*See our l/cctures on African Colonization and Civilization, for our views of 
the causes of tlie failure of the type of free labor which exists in the West 
Indies. 



14 Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 

II. That Christian governments, at the present moment, are compelled, 
from necessity, to consume slave labor producls to a large extent, 
and thus still continue to aid in extending and perpetuating slavery 
and the slave trade. 



The discussion of our first proposition closed with a statement of 
the deficit of free labor tropical cultivation, within the territorial limits 
upon which the emancipation of the slaves, formerly held in bondage 
by England and France, had been effected. 

In discussing the second proposition, we shall first ascertain the 
extent of the consumption of tropical commodities, by the three gov- 
ernments most deeply interested in the questions of slavery and the 
slave trade, (England, France, and the United States,) and tiien the 
sources from which their supplies are obtained, and the proportions 
that are the product of free labor or of slave labor. And, first, of 
Cotton : 

The manufacture of raw cotton into fabrics for clothing, was intro- 
duced into England at an early period ; but it was confined chiefly to 
operatives in families, until about 1785, when the discovery of the 
power of steam, and the improvements in machinery, gave to manu- 
facturing industry an impulse that has extended it with almost mirac- 
ulous rapidity. 

The best information that can be gained from the English custom- 
house books, gives from one to two millions of pounds of cotton as 
the amount annually imported between 1697 and 1751. In 1764, 
the imports had reached 3,870,000 lbs., and in 1784, over 11,480,000 
pounds.* 

Previous to 1795, the supplies of cotton were obtained by England 
from the West Indies, South America, India, and the Levant.! It 
was not until 1791, that any cotton was shipped to England from the 
United States. In this year, 189,316 lbs. were sent over, and in the 
year following only 138,328 lbs. J 

The importation of cotton into England maintained a nearly equal 
annual progressive increase, from 1784 to 1805, when it had reached 
60,000,000 lbs., and in 1817, near 125,000,000 lbs., a small part of 
which (8,156,000 lbs.) was re-exported. § 

'i'he quantity of cotton consumed by Great Britain, from 1817, the 
period last stated, to 1836, is embraced in the following table, which 
is extracted from that very able work. Porter's Progress of the 
Nation. That from 1840 to 1849 is also added, and is taken from a 
very elaborate and valuable article in the London Economist,|| a pe- 
riodical that has no superior for accuracy. The whole table is one 
of ffreal value in our discussion, and presents the important fact, that 



* McCullough's account of British Empire, Vol. I, p. 643. 

+ lb., p. 648. t lb., p. 648. 

§ McCullough, Vol. I, p. 649. 

II Supplement to London Economist, Jan. 5, 1850. 



Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 



15 



the consumption of cotton in England, in 1819, was 624,000,000 lbs.* 
The imports for the year reached 755,469,008 lbs.; of which there 
were re-exported 98,89:^,536 lbs,, leaving for home consumption 
656,575,472 lbs.,t of which only the quantity above stated was 
used within the year. 

Table exhibiting the quantity of Cotton annually consumed in England, from 
1818 to 1838,* and from 1840 to 1849. § 



Years. 


Cotton, lbs. 


Year. 

1828 


Cotton, lbs. 
217,860,000 


Years. 
1840 


Cotton, lbs. 


1818 


109,902,000 


517,254,400 


1819 


109,518,000 


1829 


219,200,000 1 


1841 


460,387,200 


1820 


120,205,000 


1830 


247,600,000 J 


1842 


477,339,200 


1821 


129,029,000 


1831 


262,700,000 1 


1843 


555,214,400 


1822 


145,493,000 


1832 


276,900,000 


1844 


570,731,200 


1823 


154,14(i,000 


1833 


287,000,000 


1845 


626,496,000 


1824 


105,174,000 


1834 


303,000,000 


1846 


624,000,000 


1825 


106,831,000 


1835 


326,407,692 [ 


1847 


442,416,000 


1826 


150,213,000 


1836 


363,684,2.32 


1848 


602,160,000 


1827 


197,200,000 


18.38* 


460,000,000 ' 


1849 


624,000,000 



* Lectures of Georife Tliompsoii, Est|.. Eiiu:laii(l, 1339. p. 93. 

The cotton consumed in the United States, in 1848, including an 
estimate of that manufactured in the cotton-growing States, and in 
those along the tributaries of the Mississippi, estimating the bales at 
400 lbs. each, was 260,000,000 lbs,!| Our average annual increased 
consumption of cotton is 14,000,000 Ibs.,^ which, for 1849, will aug- 
ment the quantity consumed in the United States to 274,000,000 lbs. 

The consumption of cotton in France, in 1832, was 68,725,961 lbs., 
and in 1833, 72,767,551 lbs.** The exports from the United States 
to France, in 1849, were 149,090,000 Ibs.tt The whole amount 
delivered for consumption that year was 156,000,000 lbs., of which 
147,000,000 lbs. were from the United States, and the remaining 
9,000,000 lbs. from other countries,t± — from Brazil, say 3,000,000 lbs. 

The whole amount of cotton taken for consumption, in 1849, in 
the remaining continental countries, was 129,920,000 lbs., of which 
128,800,000 lbs. were from the United States, §§ leaving of that from 
other countries, only 1,020,000 lbs. 

The consumption of cotton from the United States, on the whole 
continent of Europe, now reaches 280,000,000 lbs.|||| 



» In tlie table of the Economist, published before the whole consumption of 
1849 had been ascertained, it is estimated at 659,984,000 lbs., the editor having 
taken, as his data, the consumption of the first eleven months of the year. Sub- 
sequently, the actual quantity was ascertained and published, and we have 
changed the figures to the true amount. 

t London Economist, 1850, p. 195. X Porter's Progress of the Nation. 

§ Supplement to the London Economist, Jan. 1850, p. 36. 

II New Orleans Bulletin. 

7 Supplement to London Economist, Jan. 1850, p. 35. 

** Porter's Progress. X\ London Economist, 1850, p. 10.3. 

tt See present Lecture, p. 20. ||{| Sup. to L Econ., Jan. 1850, p. 35. 

§§ London Econ., 1850, p. 103. 



16 



Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 



We are now prepared to state tlie amount of cotton, from all 
sources, actually consumed by the United States and Europe, in 
1849. It was as follows : 

Great Britain, lbs. . 624,000,000 

France and other Continental countries, . . . 285,920,000 

The United States, 270,000,000 

Total Cotton Consumption, lbs. 1,179,920,000 

The next point of inquiry is. Whence are these supphes of cotton 
obtained? " Next to the United States, but at a very great distance 
from them, Brazil, the East Indies, and Egypt, are the countries which 
furnish the largest supplies of cotton for exportation." * The ad- 
vantages possessed by the United States, in the growing of cotton, 
and the superior qualities of our staple, render it difficult, if not 
impossible, for the other countries producing that article, to compete 
with us in its cultivation. The subjoined table is full of instruction 
on this subject. 

Imports of Cotton into Great Britain, during each of the six years, ending with 
1834, specifying the countries whence iiuported, the re-exports, and quantity left 
for consumption.^ 



Countries wlience 
Imported. 



Germany, Holland, } 

Belgium, j 

Portugal. Proper, 

Italy and Italian Islands, 

Malta, 

Turkey and Continent- ) 

al Greece, J 

Eg^'pt, (Ports on Med- ) 

iterranean,) J 

Mauritius, 

East Indies and Ceylon, 

Philipiiie Islands, 

British N. A. Colonies,- 
British West Indies,- - - • 

Hayti, 

Cuba and other foreign ) 

West Indies. J 

U- States of America,- 

Colombia, 

Brazil, 

Chili & Rio de la Plata, 
Various other countries, 
Peru, 



■ 27,693 



] 61,284 

i --■- 91,905 

I 
• .5,894,480 



. - . . 50.599 
24.481.761 

. - -16,011 

.---02,419 
-4 040,414 

. . • 149,0-18 

. • - 128,890 



Total imporled, • -- - 
Amount exported,- - 



Left for consumption. 



1830. 



lbs. 
. . 77,135 

. - 65,967 
15 

■ - 27,072 



■ • - 35-3,077 

. -3,048,633 

■ --■14,056 
12.481.761 

.---29.672 
2.473 

• -3,429.247 

• - - 166,260 

■ - - • 10,174 



157.1.S7 396 210.885,358 
. - . 697,564 - • ■ 221,381 
-2S.fe78,.386 -33.092.072 



■ 1.9.31 
69,378 



222.707,411 
30.2s9.115 



• 4.063 
45,629 



2(53.961.452 
• -8.534.976 



192.478.296 2.55,420,470 



35,640 

843.895 



-7,714,474 



25,805.153 

- - - ■ 8.420 

- - 316.016 
-2,400,685 

- • 251,179 



lbs. 
--116,727 

- - • 59.050 

- - - 21 >:» 

- - • 28,063 

• - 289,779 
-8,824,111 



■35,178.625 

40,879 

7,158 

• •2.04(1,428 
59,413 

314 



219.333.628 219,756,753 
--■ 334.C91J--- 293,(>02 

■ 31.095.761-20.109,560 
---■- 10,624 .--'-- 3,729 
no' 1.446 

■ ---57,027: 1,194 



J8S.074 8.53 280.832.525 
22.308.5561 .18.027,940 



266.366.298 268.804.585 



1833- 



Ibs. 

■ • • 3.909 

■ 943,381 

• • 15.708 

• - 17;298 

• 433,898 
. 553,364 



■ 32.755,164 

■ - - - 37.908 
.-■145.526 
. -2.084.862 
. - - 389,791 



237,596.758 
- - • 305,033 
-28,403.821 

378 

38 



1834. 



lbs. 
• • - - 7,29C 

■ - • - 5.524 
- - 826,458 



• 410,730 
- 444,437 



■ 32,920,805 

3 3.32 

• -2.296.525 

- - - 223,004 

3,794 

269.203.075 
--1,004.840 
-19,291.3i)6 

- - - - 75.257 

- - - 154-839 
4.05:3 



303.656,837.326.875.425 
■17.363 8821 24.461.963 



1 

^86.292,955 302,413,462 



The following table, added to the above, aflbrds all the information 
that is necessary to a full understanding of the question, whence the 
supplies of cotton are obtained: 



* McCullough, Vol. I, p. G51. f lb. 



Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 



17 



Imports of cotton into Great Britain, from all foreign countries, presenting the an- 
nual average during periods offte years, from 1830 to 1849, inclusive.* 



Tears. 


Miscellaneous.* 


Br.z.l. 

59,590,800 
51,474.800 
37,698,000 
39,654,^00 


F-?y?<. 


East Ir,di«. 


United Shtes. 


1830 to 18.34 
1835 to 1839 
1840 to 1844 
1845 to 1849 


5,510,000 

12,909,600 

9,430.800 

3,586,400 


7.959,600 
13.842,400 
16,633,200 
17,967,200 


32,318,000 
57,612.000 
93,383,600 
71,940,800 


247.356,400 
344,688.800 
464,226,400 
734.244.560 i 



When the cotton of the United States had been fairly tested in 
England, it was found to be very much superior to that from the East 
Indies. The seed of our cotton was, therefore, introduced into India, 
and its cultivation so far succeeded, as to warrant the belief that, with 
proper encouragement from government, it might be grown in any 
quantities. In 18.39, a vigorous effort was made, headed by George 
Thompson, Esq.,§ to enlist Parliament in the enterprise. It was 
urged that all the elements of successful cotton cultivation existed in 
the East Inches, and that the English nation miglit soon obtain its 
supplies of cotton from that country, and repudiate that of the United 
States. 

The introduction to the American edition of the Lectures delivered 
by Thompson on that occasion, which was written by Wm. Llovd 
Garrison, contains the following sentences. || They sufficiendy indi- 
cate what were the anticipations of the advocates of the measure : 

" If England can raise her own cotton in India, at the paltry rate 
of a penny a pound, what inducement can she have to obtain her 
supply from a rival nation, at a rate six or eight times higher ? It is 
stated that East India free labor costs three pence a day — African 
slave labor, two shillings ; that upward of 800,000 bales of cotton 
are exported from the United States, annually, to England; and that 
the cotton trade of the United States, with England amounts to the 
enormous sum of $40,000,000 annually. Let that market be closed 
to this slaveholding Republic, and its slave system must inevitably 
perish from starvation ! " 

Mr. Thompson, throughout the whole course of his lectures, seems 
not to doubt the success of East India cotton cultivation, and also tliat of 
sugar andcoflee,and that the result would be the destruction of tlie slave 
trade, and the downfall of slavery everywhere. He thus exclaims :1[ 

" The batde-ground of freedom for the world is on the plains of 
Hindostan. Yes, my friends, do justice to India ; wave there the 
scepter of justice, and the rod of oppression falls from the hands 
of the slaveholder in America; and the slave, swelling bevond the 



* Supplement to the London Economist, 1850, pp. 34, 35. — Bales estimated at 
400 lbs. each. 

t Chiefly the British Colonies. 

* We have substituted the averacre imports of 1848 and 1849, from the United 
States, instead of from 1845 to 1649, bc'cause it gives a nearer approximation to 
the truth. 1847, in the U. S., made only three-fourths of a crop, and it was 
the year of famine in Great Britain. 

§ The great Abolitionist. || Lecture by George Thompson, Esq., 1839, p. 9 
ir Lecture, pago 121. 



18 Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 

measure of his chains, stands disenthralled, a free man, and an 
acknowledged brother ! " 

We need not trace the history of this effort to promote the cultiva- 
tion of cotton in India. It is of such recent occurrence, that all 
intelligent men are familiar with the results. Paragraphs like the 
following frequently meet the eye of the general reader. It is taken 
from a reliable periodical. 

"Late accounts from India [through the English press,] represent 
that the attempts of the British capitalists, during the last two or 
three years, to cultivate cotton in the district of Dharvvar, from which 
much was expected, have signally failed. In 1847-8, about 20,000 
acres were cultivated. It is now ascertained that the crop has rapidly de- 
creased, only 4,000 acres having been under cultivation the past year." 

It is unnecessary to discuss the causes operating in the East 
Indies, to make it impossible to stimulate its free laborers much 
beyond their wonted rules of industry. Our views upon this ques- 
tion will be found in our two former lectures, where we present the 
causes of the failure of West India free labor. We need but state, 
here, that the East Indies have only a Pagan civilization, which has 
long since attained its full maturity. Any efforts, therefore, aside from 
the introduction of Christianity, and a Christian civilization, or 
the reduction of the population to slavery, must fail in securing a 
much greater degree of industry than exists at present. If left to 
their own free will, all attempts to introduce improvements in agri- 
culture and manufactures, will probably result like the following eflbrt 
made to improve tlieir mode of plowing. Under the head of " Cot- 
ton in India," the London Times of the present year, says : 

" The one great element of American success — of American en- 
terprise — can never, at least for many generations, be imparted to 
India. It is impossible to expect of Hindoos all that is achieved by 
citizens of the States. During the experiments to which we have 
alluded, an English plow was introduced into one of the provinces, 
and the natives were taught its use and superiority over their own 
clumsy machinery. They were at first astonished and delighted at 
its effects, but as soon as the agent's back was turned, they took it, 
painted it red, set it up on end, and ivorshipped it." 

Another anecdote, confirmatory of the impossibility of effecting a 
change of habits in the people of India, was told by the Rev. J. H. 
Morrison, missionary in India, during his late visit to this country. 
An English gentleman, resident in India, had commenced an improve- 
ment, requiring the removal of a large quantity of earth. Employing 
native laborers, they commenced the task in their usual way, by car- 
rying the earth to the place of deposit, in baskets, upon their heads. 
Pitying them, and wisliing to facilitate the work, he had a number 
of wheelbarrows constructed, and taken upon the ground. Showing 
the laborers how to use them, they appeared pleased with the nov- 
elty, and worked briskly. Gratified that he had relieved them from 
a toilsome system of labor, the gentleman left them to pursue their 
work. But on returning some days afterwards, he was astonished 



Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 19 

and morlified, to see them filling their wheelbarrows, and then, lifting 
the whole burden upon their heads, deliberately carrying it ofl' as they 
had done their baskets. Such is Pagan stupidity and Pagan attach- 
ment to custom. 

The successful cultivation of cotton in the United Stales, and the 
better adaptation of the lands in Cuba and Brazil, to the production 
of sugar and coffee, has led the planters of these two countries to 
devote their labor chiefly to the production of the last named com- 
modities. The preceding tables of imports into England, (page 16,) 
proves the truth of this statement, and shows a great diminution in 
the production of cotton, except in the United States. In reviewing 
the results in the several cotton-growing countries, the London Econ- 
omist remarks : "^^^ 

" From Brazil, therefore, our annual supply has diminished nearly 
20,000,000 lbs. ; or if we compare the two extreme years of the 
series, 1830 and 1848, the falling off is from 76,906,800 lbs. to 
40,097,600 lbs. or 36,800,000 lbs. 

" The supply from Egypt, however, seems to have reached its 
maximum in 1845, in which year we received 32,537,600 lbs. This 
year it does not reach half that amount. Moreover, this country, 
from the peculiar circumstances of its government, is little to be 
relied upon, — the supply having varied from 16,1 16,000 lbs. in 1832, 
to 1,027,600 lbs. in 1833 ; and again, from 7,298,000 lbs. in 1842, 
to 26,400,000 lbs. in 1844. 

" For many years it was the custom of the Pacha of Egypt, to 
require a certain amount of cotton from his tenants, or, in fact, to 
compel them to pay the whole, or a fixed portion of their rent, in 
cotton. Under this forcing system, the cultivation was extensively 
introduced. Of late years, however, the Fellahs have been allowed 
to grow the article, or not, at their option ; and such is their natural 
indolence and want of enterprise, that even where they still continue 
the growth, they do so in a very careless manner, t 

" Our supply from the East Indies varies enormously, from 36,- 
000,000 lbs. to 108,000,000 lbs. per annum, inasmuch as ive only 
receive that proportion of the crop ichich our prices may divert frojn 
China, or from internal consnmption. 

" The summary of our supply, from all these quarters combined, is : 



1830 to 1834, 105,410,400 lbs. 
1835 to 1839, 136,088,000 lbs. 



1840 to 1844, 157,145,600 lbs. 
1845 to 1849, 133,120,800 lbs. 



"The result of this inquiry, then, is, that our average annual sup- 
ply from all quarters, except the United Slates, was, in the five years 
ending 1849, less liy 2,943,200 lbs. than in the five years ending 
1839,' and less by 24,000,000 lbs. than in the five years ending 1844. 
Of this diminished supply, moreover, we have been exporting an 
increasing quantity, averaging, annually, in the last five years, 31,- 
680,000 lbs. against 27,360,000, annually, in the previous five years." 

» Supplement to Jiiii. 5, 1850, p. 34. f I^' P- 38. 



20 Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 



The imports of cotton into the United States, mostly from the 
Dutch West Indies, is very inconsiderable in amount, being, for 1848, 
only 317,742 lbs., or less than 800 bags, of which 51,000 lbs. were 
re-exported. 

Tiie exports of cotton from the United States, affords the key to 
the chief source of supply of that article to European countries. 

Exports of Cotton from the United States, to Foreic^n Countries, for the years 1846, 
1847, 1848, and 1849, the years ending June 30.* 



Whither Exported. 



Russia, 

Prussia, 

Sweden and Norway,. . . 

Denmark, 

Hanse towns, 

Holland, 

Belgium, 

England, 

Scotland, 

Ireland, 

Gibralter, 

British Amer. Colonies,. 
France on the Atlantic, 
" Mediterranean, 

Spain, 

Cuba, 

Portugal, 

Italy, 

Sardinia, 

Trieste and Austrian ports 

Mexico, 

Cent. Repub. of America, 
China and South Seas, 

Total, lbs 

Value, 



Lbs.— 1846. 



4,292,680 



2,555,788 

32,2b7 

7,543,017 

3,849,859 

7,408,422 

326,365,971 

13,312,850 

6,379,746 

1,054,310 

47,380 

124,185,369 

7,867,480 

117,885 

10,102,969 

19,533 

11,212,093 

2,387,264 

13,382,043 

4,392 828 



85,760 



547,558,055 
$42,767,341 



5,618,365 



2,887,693 

660,732 

10,889,543 

1,978,324 

10,184,348 

338,150,564 

12,683,738 

424,497 

90,199 

226,493 

98,421,966 

4,695,492 

12,313,658 

3,139,156 



8,720,718 

4,494,594 

11,780,673 



848,998 

527,219"^ 

$53,415,884 



-1848. 1 Lbs.— 1849 < 



10,266,911 

116,523 

4,978,024 

69,020 

17,420,498 

4,851,509 

15,279,676 

546,911,132 

25,091,965 

" ' '133,262 

22,352 

129,263,272 

7,034,583 

19,323,425 

4,557,474 

774 

6,077,621 

2,514,364 

20,643,690 



12,953 



814,274,431 
$61,998,294 



10,650,631 



7,030,305 

4,779 

13,844,494 

11,877,386 

28,113,309 

696,669,474 

38,706,884 

3,968,547 

5,725,812 

97,104 

144,481,949 

6,858,283 

23,285,804 

1,584,784 

240,895 

10,604,462 

6,053,707 

13,279,384 

2,208,704 

524,721 

760,861 



1026,602,269 
$66,396,976 



W.e must bring this discussion of the cotton question to a close. 
If we take the table of imports into England,! as the guide, it will 
be seen that she was importing, annually, during the last period 
named, ending with 1849, the following proportions of slave labor 
and oi free labor cotton : 

The product of Slave labor. 

From Brazil, 39,654,800 lbs. 

From United States, .... 734,244,560 " 

773,899,360 lbs. 



The product of Free labor. 

From Egypt, 17,967,200 lbs. 

From East Indies, 71,940,800 " 

From Miscellaneous, .... 3,586,400 " 



93,494,400 " 



Enorland's excess of imports of slave labor cotton, 680,404,960 



* Reports of Sec. of Treas. of U. S. on Commerce and Navigation. 
+ Present Lecture, p. 17. 



Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 21 

The actual consumption of cotton, by England, in 1849, as before 
stated, was 624,000,000 lbs. Of the imports of 133,149,200 lbs. * 
cotton not the growth of the United States, there were re-exported 
31,680,000 lbs.,t leaving thereof, for consumption in England, 101,- 
469,200 lbs. Deducting this amount from the quantity consumed in 
1849, leaves 522,530,800 lbs. as the amount of England's consump- 
tion of cotton derived from the United States. 

But of the 101,469,200 lbs. above named, at least 30,000,000 lbs. 
must have been from Brazil, and consequently of slave labor origin, 
leaving for the English manufacturer, only 71,469,200 lbs. of free 
labor cotton. 

The result of this investigation may now be stated thus : 
Slave Labor Cotton consumed in 1849. 
By England, from Brazil, . . 30,000,000 lbs. 
By England, from United States, 522,530,800 " 
By France.! from United States, 147,000,000 " 
By France,' from Brazil, say, 3,000,000 « 

By other continental countries, 

from United States, . . . 128,800,000 « 
By United States, growth of 

United States, 270,000,000 « 

Total slave labor consumption, 1,101,330,800 lbs. 

Free Labor Cotton consumed in 1849. 
By England, from all sources, 71,469,200 lbs. 

By France, say, 6,000,000 » 

By other continental countries, || 1,120,000 " 

Total free labor consumption, . ~ '. '. '. . 7 8,589,200 lbs. 

Grand total cotton consumption 1,179,920,000 " 

That this exhibit of the cotton question is not an exaggerated 
statement, got up for effect, but is within the limits of the truth, will 
appear evident when the extent of the production of cotton is taken 
into consideration. By the Custom House books of commercial 
nations, all imports and exports of merchandise are easily ascertained. 
The following statement, embracing only the quantity of cotton 
consumed in the United States and exported from it, and the amount 
imported into England from other countries than the United States, 
in 1849, will be sufficient for our purpose. 

Exports of cotton from the United States, . . 1,026,602,269 lbs. 
Amount consumed in the United States, . . . 270,000,000 " 
Amount imported into England from East Indies, 

Egypt, BrazU, &c., 133,120,800 " 

Total, . ' 1,429,723,069 " 

Amount included in our estimates, . . . 1,179,92 0,000 " 
Surplus over our estimates, 249,803^069 " 



« See table, page 17, present Lecture. + Present Lecture, p. 10. 

t Present Lecture, p. 15. I! London Economist, lb50, p. 103. 



22 Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 

After this exhibition of facts, we have no fears that the fairness of 
our statements will be called in question. Indeed, a close scrutiny 
will show that we have not pressed into the tables of slave grown 
cotton, all tliat we might have done. All the foreign imports of cot- 
ton, not tlie growth of the United States, that were not re-exported by 
Eno-land, are counted as consumed, thus reducing the proportion of 
the^slave labor cotton of the United States by the amount of the 
former remaining unconsumed. We wish it also to be noticed, that 
we have included in the list of slave labor cotton consumed in Eng- 
land, in 1849, only 522,530,800 lbs. from the United States, while in 
that year, she imported of our cotton, 755,469,008 lbs., being an 
excess over the amount included in the quantity consumed, nearly 
equal to the surplus above slated, and proving that that surplus must 
be mostly the product of slave labor. 

We may now safely place, in contrast, the figures representing the 
proportions of Free Labor and of Slave Labor Cotton consumed by 
the United States and Europe, in 1849, and claim, that, so far as this 
commodity is concerned, our second proposition is triumphantly 
sustained. Look at the figures : 

Total slave labor cotton consumption, . . . 1,101,330,000 lbs. 
Total free labor cotton consumption, . . . 78,589,200 " 

Excess of consumption of slave labor over free 

labor cotton, 1,022,741,600 " 

Your attention is now called to the article of Coffee. As England 
occupies the most prominent position upon the subject of African 
freedom, and is making the most determined struggles to stimulate 
free labor, and make it compete with slave labor, her connection with 
this question, as with all the others, becomes one of great interest. 
Up to 1825, a discriminating duty of 56 shillings per cwt. was levied 
upon coffee from British India, for the benefit of the English West 
India colonies. At that time, this duty was but litde felt, because, 
owing to the excessive duty levied upon all descriptions of coffee, 
the consumption of the kingdom was below the supply from the 
West Indies, and the surplus had to seek a market elsewhere. In 
1825, the discriminating duty was reduced to 28 shillings the cwt. 
The duty after this time stood thus : 

West India coffee paid Qd. per lb., or 56s. per cwt. 

East India " " 9(1. " or 84s. 
and all other kinds were, and still are, charged Is. 3rf. per. lb., or 
140s. per cwt., amounting to a prohibition. 

The consumption of cofiee in Great Britain, after th^ese changes in 
the tariff, increased from 8,000,000 lbs., in 1824, to 22,000,000, in 
1830. The demand created by this increased consumption, could 



* Rep. Sec. Treas. U. S., on Commerce and Navigation. 

t Present Lc-cturc, p. 1 6. i See table, p. 16, present Lecture 

11 Present Lecture, p. 19. § Present Lecture, p. 15. 

IT London Economist, 1850, p. 103. ** Present Lecture, p. 15. 



Present Relations of Free Labor and Slave Labor. 23 

not be supplied by the West India planters, and the price rose 39 per 
cent., so as to bring tlie East India cotTee into use. 

At the time of the reduction of the duties. West India coffee sold 
at 90s. the cwt., but it advanced to 1256-. without effecting an in- 
creased production. The quantity annually imported from the West 
Indies, in the five years that preceded the reduction of the duty 
in 1825, averaged 30,280,300 lbs., and from 1832 to 1836, only 
19,812,160 lbs., being a reduction of 34 per cent, in the supply, 
notwithstanding an advance of 39 per cent, in the price. This result 
led to another moditication of the coffee duties in 1835, when East 
India coffee was admitted on equal terms with that of the West Indies. 

While the duly on East India coffee was 9r/. per lb., the amount 
increased, because of the increase of price of West India coffee, from 
about 300,000 lbs. a year, to 1,500,000 lbs. In 1835, the consump- 
tion of East India coffee amounted to 5,596,791 lbs., and in 1837 
reached 9,114,793 lbs.* 

The following table, embracing the whole field of the extent of 
the production and consumption of coffee, is so full and satisfactory, 
that nothinor more can be needed to a clear understanding of the sub- 
ject. It was prepared in December, 1849, by Campbell, Arnott & 
Co., the great Liverpool coffee merchants, and may be relied upon 
as possessing much accuracy. 



Comparative Vietc of Production and Consumption of Coffee. 



COUNTRIES PRODUCING. 



Brazil, 

Java and Sumatra. 

Cuba, 

Porto Rico, Laguayra, and Costa Rica,- 

St. Domingo, 

British West Indies, and Ceylon, 

Dutch West Indies, 

French East and West Indies, 

Mocha, India, &o., 



Total Production,' 



Deduct consumption of United States.- 
Balance for Europe, 



COUNTRIES CONSUMING 



Great Britain, 

France and transit, and Switzerland. 

Holland, Belgium, and Germany, 

Russia, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. ■■ 
Italy, Austria, Levant, Greece, and Turkey, 
Spain and Portugal, 



Total Consumption, 

Surplus on the .30th of December, 



183^. 1S38. 



000,112, 
OOil 9 
UOO 4;», 
1100 2-2, 
000 1 .3«, 
OOOj 21 

000 ! ,3, 

000 
000 1 u 



184:3. 



000 IPS, 
(inn l.ifi 

0001 40 
liOO -'4. 



301,7-'8 000 361,312.000 



■10.280.000 89,000.000 



•252.448 000 271.712.000 



lbs. 

,100.000 
^00.000 
2-0,000 
040.000 

,320.000 

,040,000 
3()0.000 

,900,000 
720 OUO 



184:8. 



ibs. 
280,000.000 
134.400,000 
22,400,000 
33,600.000 
33.000,000 
38.080.000 
2.240.000 
6.720.000 
4,480,000 



555.520,000 



123,200,000 156800,000 
374,080.000 398,720,000 



18.32 



1838 



23.520.000' 25,312.000 31.300.000 
33.600.000 36 0I14.(HIO 40,320(100 
152320.000 190.40011(10 219. .520 00(1 



1.-543 



11,200 000 15.6Mi.000 
34,720 000 40.320.000 
G.720.000' 8.960.000 



202.0-^1 000 3IG.73(;,000 



117.000.000 94.7.W.000 



22.400 000 
51.520 000 
11,200.000 



1848 



38,080.000 
44.K(IO.OO(J 
23-J9G0.l)00 
26&S0.O00 
58.240,000 
13.440.000 



414,400.000 
l.W.OSG.OOO 



* Porter's Progress of the Nation, Vol. II., p. 118, 119. 



24 



Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 



In 1821, the United States consumed 11,866,063 lbs. of coffee. 
The duty was then five cents per lb. and remained at this rate until 
1831, when it was reduced to two cents, and in 1832 to one cent. 

In 1833 coffee was admitted free of duty, and has so remained 
ever since that date. The consumption of that year was 75,057,906 
lbs., to which it had gradually risen from the 11,886,000 lbs. of 1821. 
From this date, the consumption of coffee in the United States, had a 
rapid increase until 1847, when it had reached 150,332,992 lbs.* In 
1848 the consumption was 150,000,000 Ibs.t 

As all our investigations have reference to the question of the ex- 
tent to which Christian governments are consuming slave labor 
products, it becomes necessary to refer to the sources whence the 
coffee imported by each is obtained. It stands thus : 

England, by her discriminating duties, almost entirely excludes 
slave labor coffee, and derives nearly the whole amount of her con- 
sumption of that article from her own colonies. Of the 34,431,074 
lbs. of coffee imported for England for home consumption, 29,769,730 
lbs. were from her own colonies, and only 4,661,344 from elsewhere.il 

According to the table of Campbell, Arnott, and Co., the quantity 
of coffee produced in slave labor countries, including Brazil, the 
Dutch West Indies, Cuba, Porto Rico, &c., in 1848, was 338,240,000 
lbs., while in the remaining coffee growing countries, which were all 
free labor, (France, in that year, having emancipated the slaves in her 
colonies,) the production was only 217,800,000 lbs., being less than 
that of the product of slave labor, by nearly one-third, or 120,440,000 
lbs. As Holland, Belgium, and Germany, consume 98,560,000 lbs. 
of coffee more than is produced in Java and Sumatra, this excess is 
probably all slave grown produce. Looking at the small product of 
the colonies of France, and her large consumption, the conclusion is, 
that the greater portion of what she uses must be the product of 
slave labor. 

The following table points to the sources whence the United States 
derives its coffee, and the extent to which she is dependent upon 
slave labor for that article. 

Imports of Coffee into the United States, for the year 1848. X 



Countries whence imported. 


Coffee, lbs. 


Countries whence imported. 


Coffee, Its. 


Swedish West Indies. . . . 

Danish do. do 

Dutch do. do 


510 

56,702 

2,001 

3,037,373 

141,077 

710,331 

2,381,773 

25,484 

2,258,710 

384,393 


Hayti 

New Granada 

Venezuela 


16,990,976 

.328,971 

12,720,613 

111,657,395 

507,810 

37,136 

57,567 

167,400 

1,923 




Brazil 


Dutch East Indies 

British do. do 


Cisplatine Republic 

Chili 


Holland 

Manilla and Phillipine Is. 

Cuba 

Other Spanish W. I 


Africa generally 

Asia generally 

France on Atlantic 

Total, lbs. 


151,412,125 



*Rep. Sec. Treas. U. S., Dec. 1, 1847. + Campbell, Arnott, and Co. 

t Rep. Sec. Treas. on Com. & Nav., 1848 &. 9, the year ending June 30, 1848 

II London Qr. Rev. April, 1850. 



Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 25 



Of the coffee imported, as above, that from Brazil, Cuba, and 
other Spanish and Dutch West Indies, amounting to 114,291,214 
lbs., was all slave labor produce. Taking all the remaining imports 
as the product of free labor, and they only afford us 37,117,911 lbs., 
or a half million less than one-fourth of the amount imported. Thus 
stands the cotlee question in the United States. 

From the preceding statistics it appears that the United States and 
the nations of Europe are now consuming, annually, or have as stock 
on hand, about 555,520,000 lbs. of coffee, divided as follows: 
The product of slave labor .... 338,240,000 lbs. 
The product of free labor 217,280,000 lbs. 



Difference in favor of slave labor 



120,960,000 lbs. 



Next, and last, the article of Sugar clamis attention. " It was 
unknown to the ancients, as an article of consumption. In Europe 
it was introduced as late as the fifteenth century." The first sample 
of West India sugar was manufactured in Jamaica, in 1673. The 
rapidity with which its production, and consumption, has increased, 
will be indicated by the following table, showing the exports of 
sugar from Jamaica. This table is made up from one in Martin's 
British Colonies, a work of great research ; the facts of which are 
derived from official sources. The statistics have been condensed so 
as to give the average annual exports from 1772 to 1836, and there 
is added, from Blackwood's Magazine, tliose from 1839 to 1843, and 
from 1846 to 1848.* A few years omitted in tbe earlier periods, 
are blanks in Martin's tables. From 1804, onward, where differ- 
ent results from the general average are found, we give the years 
separately. This arrangement is important, to enable us to judge 
of the influence which the prohibition of the slave trade exerted 
upon the prosperity of that and the other West India Islands ; and 
to determine the period when the decline in the amount of Jamaica 
exports had its origin. 

Average annual exports of Sugar from Jamaica, for the periods stated.^ 



Years. 


lbs. Sugar. 


Years. 


lbs. Sugar. 


1772 to 1775 


123,979,700 


1809 to 1810 


180,963,825 


1788 to 1791 


143,794,837 


1811 alone. 


218,874,600 


1793 to 1798 


145,598,850 


1812 to 1821 


183,706,280 


1799 to 1803 


193,781,140 


1822 to 1832 


153,760,431 


1804 alone. 


177,436,750 


1833 to 1835 


131,129,100 


1805 alone. 


237,751,150 


1836 alone 


75,990,950 


1806 alone. 


231,656,6.50 


1839 to 184311 


67,924,800 


1807 to 1808 


197,963,825 


i 1846 to 1848§ 


67,539,200 



II Present Lecture, p. 10. 
As heretofore stated,^ the effects 
in 1808, and of the emancipation 



§ Ibid, 
of the abolition of the slave trade, 
of the slaves in 1834, upon the 



* See present Lecture, p. 10. J Page 7, present Lecture. 

f The tables of Martin give the exports in lihds. tierces, and hbls. We have 
reduced the whole, to llis., estimating the hhd. at 1600 lbs., the tierce at 900 lbs. 
and the barrel at 250 lbs., as per best authorities. 



26 Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 

commercial interests of Jamaica, will serve as a true index to the 
results in all the English West India colonies. 

The course of legislation in England, for several years past, has 
tended to increase the consumption of sugar by augmenting the 
supply. Up to 1844 all foreign sugars were excluded, and her 
own colonies enjoyed a strict monopoly of her markets. But the 
failures of her West India possessions, after emancipation, to furnish 
their usual supplies, led, in 1844, to the admission of foreign free 
labor sugar for consumption, and, in 1846, to that of slave labor 
sugar also. 

In 1848, the London Quarterly Review* says, that the amount 
taken for consumption, of foreign slave grown sugar, was 229,748,- 
096 lbs. We have been unable to ascertain the total annual con- 
sumption of slave grown sugar, in England, since 1846, but find, by 
the London Economist,! tliat, for the first eleven months of each 
year, it has been as follows : 

1846 lbs. 57,902,544 I 1848 lbs. 118,366,976 

1847 " 104,838,048 | 1849 " 63,517,888 

The total imports of sugar into England, and the amount re-ex- 
ported, were as follows : 

English imports.X English re-exporls.\\ 

1846 lbs. lbs. 29,624,432 

1847 i* " 96,613,992 

1848 " 852,792,976 " 48,735,008 

1849 « 928,002,208 " 84,768,096 

The difference between the imports and re-exports is the amount 
taken for consumption, and the difference between this and the actual 
consumption indicates the stock left on hand at the close of the year. 
The whole amount of sugar consumed in England, in 1831,§ 
was over 450,000,000 lbs. From 1844 to 1849, the consumption 
of this article, including molasses at ils equivalent in sugar, was as 
follows : ^ 



1844 


lbs. 


486,648,960 


1847 1 


bs. 675,329,120 


1845 


(( 


570,127,040 


1848 


692,256,320 


1846 


u 


609,781,760 


1849 


" 728,931,600 



By taking the average consumption of 1848 and 1849, a true idea 
of tlie pres°ent annual demand for sugar, in the English market, will 
be afforded : 

It was, p«r annum, lbs. 710,593,960 

Of which slave-grovvn sugar** constituted, say, 146,000,000 



Leaving England's consumption of free labor sugar, 564,593,960 



* See present Lecture, p. U. + 1B50, p. 86. 

X London Economist, 1850, p. 169. || lb., p. 170. 

§ Present Lecture, p. 11. If Lend. Economist, 1850, p. 170. 

** See page 27. — Allowing all the exports from the English Colonies to be 
imported and consumed by her, the whole amount is less than her consumptiou, 
by about 146,000,000 lbs. 



Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 27 



The sources of England's supply of sugar can be seen at once, in 
the annexed table. The amounts stated, however, are only for the 
Jirst eleven months of each year, and do not give the whole quantity 
imported and entered for consumption. 

Suc/ar entered in the Jirst eleven vwnths of each year, for consumption.* 



Year. 



West Indies. I Mauritius. 



East India. 



Total colonial. i Total foreign. 



1846 

1847 
1848 
1849 



244,737,136 I 93,879,520 
261,306,080 I 112,783,216 
283.772,036 «6 086,896 
319,0:32,896 106,993,152 



150,773,616 
124,.300,144 
140,658,572 
138,867,792 



489,390,272 
498,399,440 
510,517,404 
564,893,616 



57,902,544 
104,838,048 
134,046,976 

47,837,888 



We add another table, which embraces the whole of the exports 
from all the Britisli colonies, from 1840 to 1849, and exhibits their 
extent for the twelve months of each year. 

Exports of Sugar from all the British Colonial Possessions.^ 



Years. 


lbs. Sugar. 


Remarks, 


Years. 


lbs. Sugar. 


Remarks. 


1840 
1841 
1842 
1843 
1844 


365,060,192 
473,177,488 
463,220.064 
459,557,728 
459,495,696 


Strict monopoly 
(( (( 

(( (( 


1845 
1846 

1847 
1848 
1849 


551, .336,992 
501,061,904 
700,906,57(i 
566,077,792 
583,024,400 


Fr. lab. sug. adm. 

Foreign, of all 

kinds, adm. 



This table includes the entire sources of supply possessed by Eng- 
land within her own colonies, and shows that their exports of sugar, 
were 

Short of her consumption, in 1849, by 145,907,200 pounds. 

Short of her total imports, do. 344,977,808 » 

But it must here be remarked, that the whole exports froin the 
British colonies are not always imported into England, because a 
portion of their products are taken by other countries. In 1848, 
the United States imported from the British West India Islands, 
1,258,222 lbs. of sugar, and in 1849, 1,245,492 lbs. It .must be re- 
collected, then, that the exports from her colonies are not always 
the measure of England's imports from thein, and that, therefore, 
the amount of her supplies of cotton, sugar, collee, &c., from her 
colonies, are not always equal to their exports. 

The production of cane sugar in the United States, until recently, 
was confined to Louisiana. The rapidity with whicii it has pro- 
gressed, in this country, furnishes a useful lesson for the little Re- 
public of Liberia. She possesses the best quality of sugar lands, 
and has around her an unlimited amount of labor that may be made 
available. 

The following table presents the amount of the crops of sugar 
produced in Louisiana, at nearly equal intervals, during thirty years : 



* London Economist, 1850, p. 86. 

t London Economist, from Pari. Rep. 351, 1850. 



28 



Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 



and shows the extent of our domestic supply of cane sugar.* The 
Droduction of maple sugar, in 1840,t was about 30,000,000 lbs. 

Table of crops of Louisiana Sugar. 



Years. 


lbs. Sugar. 


Years. 


lbs. Sugar. 


1818 

1824-5 

1829-30 

1834-5 

1839-40 


18,000,000 

30,000,000 

73,000,000 

110,000,000 

119,457,000 


1844-5 
1848-9 
1849-50* 
" Texas.t 
Lou. gals, niolas. 


204,916,000 

220,000,000 

269,769,000 

10,000,000 

12,000,000 



* New Orleans Commercial Bulletin. f Ibid. 

The imports of foreign cane sugar into the United States, for the 
last two years, were as follows : J 

1848 . . . 257,138,230 

1849 .... 259,324,126 

Of these amounts the following were the proportions of free and 
of slave labor : 

Imports of Free and of Slave Labor Sugar into the United States.\\ 



Slave labor. 



lbs. 1848 



lbs. 1849 



Free Labor. 



lbs. 1848 



lbs. 1849 



From Cuba, 
other Sp.W.L 

Brazil. 
Dutch W. I. 

Guiana. 

Total slv. gr. 
" free lab. 

Excess si. lb. 



181,058,107 

47,778,973 

6,687,657 

513,977 

.32,455 



183,011,744 

51,483,166 

11,131,457 

737,855 

209,755 



Sw. & Dan W.L 
Dh.E.L,Hol.etc, 

Hayti. 
Manilla, &,c. 

Cliina. 



Br W T &c 

236,071,169 246,573,977 other " 



21,067,061 
215,025,548 



12,695,355 



' countries. 



2,7.34,970 
2,432,305 

357,091 
12,546,098 

352,032 
2.096,683 

547,882 



233,878,622 Total free labor. 21.067,061 



2,695,899 

665,050 

4,617 

6,649,1.32 

1,060, .372 

1,292,761 

327,524 



12,695,355 



The exports of domestic sugar from the United States is very 
limited, being for 1848 only 3,522,779 lbs., and for 1849 but 
2,356,104 lbs. 

Of the foreign imports, there were re-exported for 1848, 13,686,- 
510, and for 1849, only 6,473,800 lbs. § 

To arrive at the amount of the consumption of sugar in the United 
States, the quantity exported must be deducted fruin the amount of 
the imports and of the domestic production, la doing this, we 
have allowed the re-exports of foreign sugar all to have been of the 
slave labor production, and thus aflbrd an advantage to the figures 
representing the free labor sugar consumed in the United States. 
Making these deductions, the following results are produced : 

*Ed. D. Mansfield, Esq., of Cincinnati Chronicle. 

i- See Census, 1840. 

i Rep. Sec. Treas. U. S., on Com. and Nav. 

II Rep. Sec. Treas. U. S., on Com. and Nav. 

§ The molasses imported into the United States, amounted, in 1849, to 23,- 
796,806 gallons, of which only 756,339 gallons were of free labor. Of these 
imports 793,535 gals, were re-exported. 



Present 'Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 29 

Consumption of Cane Sugar in the United States. 

lbs. 1*18 l!i5. 1849 

Growth of the U. S., less the exports, 216,477,221 277,402,896 

Slave labor imports, '< " 222,384,759 240,099,177 

Slave labor Sucrar consumed, U. S., 438,861,980 517,502,073 

Free labor Sugar, " " 21,067,061 12,695,355 

Total Sugar consumption, 459,929,041 530,197,428 

Excess of slave grown, do. 417,794,919 504,806,718 

The consumption of sugar in France, in 1848, was about 290,- 
000,000 lbs. or this quantity, 140,000,000 lbs. were of beet root 
sugar, produced in France. The production of cane sugar in the 
French colonies, in 1840, was 161,500,000 lbs.* Vot the first nine 
months of 1847, they suppUed to France 168,884,177 lbs., but for 
the same period of 1849, only 96,929,336 lbs , being a falling off, 
as heretofore stated, of 71,854,841 lbs. the first nine months after 
freedom.! The production of beet root sugar is increasing every 
year. A heavy duty upon foreign sugar nearly excludes it from the 
French market, and thus, since her emancipation act of 1848, France 
may be considered as consuming very Utile slave grown sugar. 

We have been unable to procure the statistics of the production 
and consumption of sugar as fully as those of cofiee and cotton. ± 
But they are sufilciently accurate for all practical purposes. For 
England and the United States they are ample, but for the continent 
somewhat imperfect. The August number of Hunt's Merchant's 
Magazine contains a statement, from the House of Eaton, Safford 
& Fox, of Cuba, of the production and consumption of sugar through- 
out the world. Although imperfect in a few cases, it enables us to 
reach a close approximation to the amount of slave and free labor 
sugars annually produced. Taking the whole of the authorities we 
have consulted, and they warrant us in stating the production of slave 
grown sugars as follows: 

Cuba and Porto Rico 672,000,000 lbs. 

Brazil 268,000,000 " 

United States 280,000,000 " 

Total slave grown sugar 1,220,000,000 lbs. 

This amount does not include the production of the Dutch colo- 
nies in the West Indies and Guiana, where slavery still exists. The 
statement is short by that amount, and we have been unable to find 
it given separately from that of the Dutch East India possessions. 
Of this slave grown sugar England and the United States consume 
663,502,000 lbs. annually. This leaves, of slave grown sugars for the 
continental countries of Europe, 556,498,000 lbs. The whole con- 
sumpfion of these countries, excepting France, but including Russia, 

* We are indebted to M. Bureau, a French gentleman engaged in the collec- 
tion iif sugar statistics, for these facts. f See present Lecture, p. 12. 

t In obtaining our cotton statistics, we have been much indebted to Mr. 
Thomas Frankland, of the Society of Friends, recently from England, whose 
acquaintance we made at the Christian Anti-Slavery Convention, in Cincinnati. 



30 



Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 



Turkey, and Egypt, is estiinatecl by Eaton, Safforil & Fox, at 765,- 
375,000. From this, deduct the above balance of slave grown sugar, 
and there is left to be supplied by free labor, a demand of 208,877,000. 
To determine the probable accuracy of the result last stated, we 
have taken the exports o( free labor sugar from the British posses- 
sions, as determined by our former investigations, and those of the 
other sugar-producing countries, as estimated in the article in Hunt's 
Mao-azine. The result is as follows : 

English possessions 583,024,000 Ibi). 

Holland possessions 120,000,000 " 

Danish and Swedish possessions 20,000,000 " 

German and Belgian, including heet sugar 30,000,000 " 

Excpss of production over consumption in the South American Republics, 

Egypt, and China 30,000,000 " 

Total free labor sugar for European and United States consumption 783,024,000 lbs. 

DeJuct free labor sugar consumed by United States and England 577,'289,000 " 

Balance left for continent, exclusiye of France 205,736,000 lbs. 

But this Statement of free labor sugar contains some of the beet 
root and all of the slave-grown sugar of the Dutch slave labor colo- 
nies. The estimates of Brazil, on the other hand, have no deduction 
for home consumption, so that the figures above given, no doubt rep- 
resent, very nearly, the consumption of free and slave labor sugars 
on the continent. 

We may now sum the whole results of our labors in one con- 
densed table, so as to exhibit the present relations of free labor to 
slave labor, and the indebtedness of the christian world to slavery 
for these arti(;les of prime necessity. 

Total consumption of Free Labor and of Slave Labor Cotton, Coffee, and Cane Sugar, by the 
countries nam^in the foregoing inveMigations. 



Countries 
consuming. 


Slave labor 
lbs. cotton. 


Free labor 
lbs. cotton. 


Slave labor 
lbs. coiTee.* 


Free labor 
lbs. coffee. 


Slave labor 
lbs. sugar. 


Free labor 
lbs. sugar. 

504,593,960 


Great Britain 

United States 


5.'S2,5.30,S00 
270,000,000 
150,000,000 

125,800,000 


71,469,200 


4,661,344 
119,682,189 

213,896,647 


33,418,156 
37,117,911 

147,213,933 


146,000,000 


6,000,000 
1,120,000 




other continental 
countries 


556,498,000 


150,000,000 
205,735,000 


Total of each 


1,101,330,800 


78,589,200 338,240,000 


217,800,000 


1,220,000,000 


933,024,315 


Slave lbs. excess- ■ 


1.022,741,600 






280,975,685 






-■ ' 







* Add the consumption of the United States to that of England, and deduct the amount 
from the total Slave I^aljor consumption, to find the amount of Slave I/abor coffee consumed 
by France and the continent. 

III. That the legislative measures adopted for the destruction of the 
slave trade and slavery, especially by England, have tended to 
increase and extend the evils they were designed to destroy. 

In the outset of the investigations demanded to sustain this propo- 
sition, it is necessary to refer to the condition of slavery and the slave 
trade before measures had been taken to arrest their progress. The 
statistical tables, in the present lecture, show that tlie commercial 
prosperity of the English and French West India colonies had reached 
its maximum about the period when the first acts having reference to 
the removal of the oppressions which had afflicted tlie African peo- 
ple, were adopted by these governments. England's act, prohibiting 
the slave trade, was passed in 1807, and took eflect in 1808. In 



Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 31 

1805 and 1806, ihe exports of sugar from Jamaica were over 230,- 
000,000 lbs.,* for each year, and from the whole English West Indies, 
it was about 036,000,000 lbs. The article of sugar is referred to, be- 
cause i is the principal one exported Irom these islands. From 1827 
to 1831, the period preceding the emancipation of the Eiighsii West 
India slaves, the exports of sugar from these colonies were reduced to 
an annual average of 448,665,520lbs.,or ?zea/7</oue-^/«'rJ, and from Ja- 
maica alone, from 1829 to 1833, to 152,564,800 lbs., tor more than one- 
third. This was twenty-five years after the prohibition of the slave 
trade, when ample time to show its effects had elapsed. The act of 
emancipation was passed iu 1833, took effect in 1834, and the free- 
dom of the slaves was perfected in 1838. 

The eff"ect of emancipation was a still farther reduction of the ex- 
ports from these colonies — the whole exports, in 1848, being only 
313,506,112 Ibs.,+ or more than one -half less than in 1807, and 
Jamaica itself but 67,539,200 lbs., or nearly threefourths less than 
in 1807. 

The first direct act of the French, in reference to African freedom, 
was the proclamation of General Le Clerc,§ in 1802, proclaiming 
liberty and equality to all the inhabitants of Ilayti, without regard 
to color. The exports of sugar from that island in 1790, were 
163,318,810 lbs. II Its prosperity was at once greatly impaired 
by the revolution, and at present its exports of sugar are almost 
nothing. 

Had a reduction of the quantity of sugar, coffee, or cotton, conse- 
quent upon the suppression of the slave trade and the emancipation 
of the slaves, been the only effects of these efllbrts to benefit the Afri- 
can race, the world would have submitted to the sacrifice without a 
murmur, because the present cheap and abundant supplies of these 
articles would have been unknown. But far different from the re- 
sults anticipated, were the consequences of these measures upon the 
welfare of tbe African people. We shall proceed to trace them. 
England and the United States, in prohibiting tlie slave trade, did 
but obey the dictates of a moral power emanating from a philan- 
thropic public sentiment. It was an act demanded by the Christian 
principle of these countries. But in the plan of its execution, we 
have lamentable evidence of the limited wisdom and foresight of man 
in grappling with evils of great magnitude. 

In 1808, when tlie slave trade was prohibited by England and the 
United States, Africa was annually losing 85,000* of her population 
by the slave trade. Of this number 19 per cent, perished in the 
middle passage, inakingr available, to the slave purchasers, 77,000 
slaves. But the discontinuance of the slave trade, by these two pow- 
ers, by no means diminished the evil sought to be destroyed. Fro?n 
that day the export of slaves from Africa increased, and from 1810 
to 1815, she was robbed yearly of 93,000 of her population; and 

* See present Lecture, jrages 13 and 32. 

t See present Lecture, p. 10. i lb. §Ib. p.8. jjlb. p. 11. 



32 Present delations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 



from 1815 to 1819 of 106,000 annually. Of the latter, 25 per 
cent, perished in the "miildle passage," so that out of 106,000 torn 
from Africa, hut 79,400 reached the planters, or only 2,400 more 
than they had obtained when the exports from Africa were but 85,000. 
With the exception of 1830 to 1835, the exports of slaves from 
Africa continued to increase until the close of 1839, when they 
reached the appalling number of 135,800 a year, with a continued loss 
of 25 per cent, of the number in their transportation. 

The following tables, prepared by a select committee of the House 
of Commons, showing the state of the African slave trade with rela- 
tion to America, for the last sixty years, convey a clear view of the 
state of this traffic during tliat period.* 

Number of Si,aves computed to have been Exported and Imported westward from 
Africa, from 1788 to 1840. 







Average casual- 


-a 


o 


o 


*. 






ties during the 


tH .E£ 


"S S 


a 


s S-a 




Am'nt of 

Slaves 
Exported. 


Voyage. 


> s o 
3 — ' 


iiported i 

Portugue 

colonies 


"C o c 

O 3 
Oh O 

S " 


S rt iH 




Av'rg 
pr'p'r- 


Am'nt. 


Eh 






tion. 




</. 


'"' 






In 1788 


100,000 


14 p. c. 


14,000 


25.000 


18,000 


44,000 


86,000 




^1798tol8i;5 


85,000 


14 " 


12,000 


15,000 


20,000 


38,000 


73,000 


o 


1805 to 1810 


85,000 


14 " 


12,000 


15,000 


25,000 


33,000 


73,000 


1810 to 1815 


93,000 


14 " 


13,000 


30,000 


30,000 


20,000 


80,000 


^ 


1815 to 1817 


106,600 


25 " 


26,600 


32,000 


31,000 


17,000 


80,000 


a) 


1817 to 1819 


106,600 


25 " 


26,600 


34,000 


34,000 


12,000 


80,000 


£ 














capt'd. 




5 1 














by 


















crus'rs 




73 


1819 to 1825 


103,000 


25 " 


25,800 


39,000 


37,000 


1,200 


77,200 


<u 


1825 to 1830 


125,000 


25 " 


31,000 


40,000 


50.000 


4,000 


94,000 


K^ 


1830 to 1835 


78,500 


25 " 


19,600 


40,000 


15,000 


3,900 


58,900 




[1835 to 1840 


1.35,800 


25 " 


33,900 


29,000 


65,000 


7,900 


101,900 



Number o/ Slaves computed to have been annually Exported and Imported 
westward from Africa, from 1840 to 1848. 





Am'nt 
of 

slaves 
expt'd. 


Average casualties 
during the voyage. 


Slaves 
import- 


Import- 


Captur- 


Total 








ed into 
Spanish 
colonies 


ed into 
Brazil. 


ed by 
cruis'rs. 






Average 
proportion 


Am'nt. 


of slaves 
import'd. 


1840 


64,114 


25 pr cent. 


16,068 


14,470 


30,000 


3,616 


48 086 


1841 


45,097 


25 " 


11.274 


11,857 


16,000 


5,966 


33,823 


1842 


28,400 


25 " 


7,100 


3,150 


14,200 


3,950 


21, .300 


1843 


55,062 


25 " 


13,765 


8,000 


.30,500 


2,797 


41,297 


1844 


54,102 


25 " 


13,525 


10,000 


26,000 


4,577 


40,577 


1845 


36,758 


25 " 


9,189 


1,.350 


22,700 


3,519 


27,569 


1846 


76,117 


25 " 


19,029 


1,700 


52,600 


2,788 


57,088 


1847 


84,356 


25 " 


21,089 


1,500 ' 57,800 


3,967 


68,267 



* Westminster Review, 1850, p. 263. 



Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 33 

But why this disastrous defeat of the benevolent designs of Eng- 
land and the United States, in their efforts to suppress the slave 
trade? The question is easily answered. The diminution of the 
exports from the British West Indies, being more than one-half, 
equaled a loss of 420,000 of her former 800,000 slaves. France 
had lost three-fifths- of her annual colonial supplies of sugar and 
other products, in tlie emancipation, or death by war, of her 480,000 
slaves in Hayti.t The 163,300,0001 lbs. of sugar lost by thyse events, 
had to be supplied to France by increased production in her remain- 
ing colonies. This required an additional amount of labor, equal- 
ing what had been rendered unavailable in Hayti, or 480,000 men; 
and this number, added to England's equivalent loss of 420,000, 
making in all 900,000 slaves, had to be procured from .Africa, and 
to be renewed every seven years.§ 

Following the example of France, Spain and Portugal immediately 
commenced extending their cultivation, in Cuba and Brazil, by a 
vigorous prosecution of the slave trade. They were encouraged in 
the execution of this design, in the opening markets created for their 
products by the diminishing exports of the English and French colo- 
nies. The withdrawal of the English and American slave merchants 
from the African coast, removed all rivalry, except that of France; 
and in a little over thirty years, slave grown products increased nearly 
three-fourths above what they had been when the slave trade was 
prohibited. jl 

These tacts being stated, it is easily seen why the slave trade 
should have increased with such rapidity, and to such an amazing 
extent. For each slave emancipated by England and France, who 
refused to labor as he had done while a slave, {for which no man will 
blame him, but which, it was predicted, he would do out of gratitude 
to his benefactor,) another had to Ije obtained from Africa to make 
up the loss lo commerce. 

But in addition to the diminished supply of tropical products, 
occasioned by the prohibition of the slave trade and the emancipa- 
tion of the slaves in the West Indies, there has been a vastly increased 
consumption of some of the commodities upon which slave labor 
has been employed; and, as before remarked, all this rapidly increas- 
ing demand had to be supplied by slave labor. Hence, the enormous 
increase of the slave trade, notwithstanding the efforts made for its 
suppression. 

But where was the error, in the legislation by England, on this 
subject? It was in this : She should, before taking any action her- 
self, have obtained the consent of the other European powers, to unite 
in disallowing the slave tiade to their subjects. At that day some of 
the articles now so profitably employing slave labor, were compara- 
tively unimportant to commerce. People, then, were more desirous 
of escaping from the evils of slavery than they are at present, and 



* Present Lecture, p. 8. f lb. i lb. p. 11. § lb. p. 7. 

Ij See Lecture first, p. 38, for McQueen's statement of this fact. 

3 



34 Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 

efficient measures for emancipation could have been more easily- 
executed. 

But E no-land's first act of philanthropy was done at a moment 
when her mainifuduring operations were rapidly growing up into 
great national interests, that could not be checked or dispensed with, 
and the ultimate importance of which could not then be foreseen. 
While, therefore, on the one hand, she was afterward pleading the 
cause of humanity, and urging the abandonment of the slave trade 
and of slavery, upon other nations ; on the other, her own di- 
minishing supplies of tropical products, and increasing cotton 
manufachires and sugar consinnptiou. were creating, at home and 
abroad, that increasing demand for slave labor products, which sup- 
plied the chief aliment that sustained the foreign slave trade and 
Ibreign slave labor cultivation. And even when Great Britain par- 
tially succeeded, by bonus* or by treaty, in gaining over a nation to 
her measures, alas ! there was not that virtuous public sentiment, 
such as had existed in England and the United States, to act over 
upon that nation, and to encourage or impel it onward in the execu- 
tion of its noble and humane engagements. 

An outline of British legislation, in reference to the admission of 
tropical commodities to her markets, will show how effectually her 
legislation at home defeated negotiation abroad. 

Up to 1844, the British colonies enjoyed a practical monopoly of 
the British markets. The duty on foreign sugar was 63 s. per cwt., 
on sugar the growth of her East India possessions and Mauritius, 
37 s. per cwt., and on that of her West India Colonies, only 27 s.per 
cwt.t In 1844 the first inroad was made, the act taking effect in 
November of that year, by which foreign free labor sugar was 
admitted at a lower duty.l This act terminated the monopoly which 
the Britisli colonies had in the markets of the mother country, and 
allowed the introduction of the free labor sugars of Java and Manilla 
for consuniption in England; while Holland and Spain compensated 
themselves for the amount of their usual supplies thus diverted to a 
profitable market, by sending to Cuba and Brazil for a sufficient quan- 
tity of their cheaper slave labor sugar to make up the deficiency, § 

In 1845, a general reduction of the sugar duties was made, which 
reduced the protection against foreign slave grown sugars one-half, 
and in 1846, the final act was passed, admitting all foreign sugars on 
advantageous terms. This act made a progressive reduction, during 
three years, of the duties on foreign sugar, until in 1849, when those 
on foreign and colonial were to become equal to each other. || In 1848 
however, another act was passed by Parliament, postponing, for three 
years, the equalization of the duties to be levied on foreign and colo- 

* A bonus was paid to Portugal, in 1815, to conclude a treaty to abandon 
the slave trade, and near the same time, by a similar treaty with Spain, she 
received from England $2,000,000, and afterward evaded her engagement.— 
Ed. Rev., July 1H36. 

t Westminster Rev. 1850, p. 276. X London Economist, 1850, p. 85. 

§See Lecture first, p. 41. » Blnckwood's Mag. 184, p. 5. 



Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Lahoi 



35 



nial sugars, and thus, seemingly, affording a slight protection to the 
colonies until 1854. But the difference in duties, owing to the man- 
ner in which the scale is arranged, and the greater chfiipness of 
slave-labor cultivation, makes the law afford only a nominal protec- 
tion and be of litde practical value. The duties, per cwt., on for- 
eign and colonial sugars, stand as follows since the last enactment, 
and will be equal on all kinds in July, 1854.t 









MUSCOVADOS. 






To 5 July, 


To 5 Ti 


ly, 


Too July. 


To 5 July, 


To .=i July. 


Fr'ui 5 July 


18.iO. 


1851 




l!-5-2. 


1HU3. ■ 


IS'34. 


1854. 


£. 5. d 


.£. s. 


d. 


.£. v. d. 


£. .«. </. 


£. s d 


±.. 5. d. 


British 11 


11 





10 


10 


10 


10 


Foreign 17 


15 


6 


14 


13 


12 


10 






WHITE CLAYED. 






British 14 


12 


10 


11 8 11 8 


11 8 


11 8 


Foreign 19 10 


18 


1 


16 4 15 2 


14 


11 8 






WHITE REFINED. 






British 16 


14 


8 


1.3 4 13 4 


13 4 


13 4 


Foreign 14 8 


1 2 


8 


10 8 19 4 

MOLASSES. 


17 4 


13 4 


British 4 6 


4 


2 


3 9 1 3 9 


3 9 


3 9 


Foreign 6 4 


5 


9 


5 3 


4 10 


4 6 


3 9 



The immense falling off in the exports of the British West India 
colonies, whicli had taken place after emancipation, and the impossi- 
bility of her East India possessions supplying the deficiency, left the 
government of Great Britain no other alternative but a reduction of 
the sugar duties, and tlie admission of slave grown sugar. A strug- 
gle to stimulate West India industry had been continued thirteen 
years, from 1833 to 1846, resulting only in taxing the English people 
by protective duties, $150,000,000± more than the consumers of 
other countries had paid for an equal quantity of sugar, and ihe effort 
had to be abandoned. 

For many years her West India colonies had supplied to England 
more sugar tlian was necessary for home consumption, allowing the 
government to force off that of her East India possessions into other 
markets, by a differential duty of 10 shillings the cwt. in favor of her 
West Indies. But in 184t>, her own consumption of sugar was 609,- 
781,760 lbs.,§ and the total exports of all her West In(ha colonies only 
277,'i5-2,400 lbs.,!| and with that of the East Indies and Mauritius 
added, but 501,061,904 Ibs.,^ an amount, even if England received it 
all, not sufllcient for her home consumption by 108,1 19,856 lbs. 
By this result the whole field of the foreign ma^rkeis, formerly supplied 
with Ensriish sugar, was left open for that of slave labor products. 

Tbe impulse given to the efforts of oilier nations, in the prosecu- 
tion of tlie slave trade, when it was abandoned by England and the 
United States, received no check, as is shown by the foregoing 



+ Westminster Rev. 1850, p. 276. 

i WestniiiistiT Review, 1850, p. 275. § Present Lecture, p. 26. 

\\ Present Lecture, p. 10. IT Present Lecture, p. 27. 



36 Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 

table,* until 1830, when a reduction of the price of sugar from 44*. 6i. 
the cwt. to 24s. 8rf., diminished the export of slaves from Africa 37 
per cent. But this depression lasted only during the time that the 
price of sugar continued at that reduced rate. In 1836, sugar again 
rose to 29s. Zd. the cwt., and gave an impetus to the slave trade that 
increased the export of slaves from Africa 73 per cent., or to 135,800 
per annum from that till the close of 1839.t 

But 1810 constitutes an epoch in the history of the slave trade, 
because, during that year, the first successful check was given to it, 
and the hope created that it could be annihilated. From that period 
until 1847, the varying results will be found in the foregoing Parlia- 
mentary tables. By the first table it will be seen, that the African 
slave trade had reached iti maximum from 1835 to 1839, when the 
averao-e annual exports were 135,800, and that in 1840 it was sud- 
denly reduced to 64,114. 

This reduction was eflfected through the unwearying efforts of 
England, stimulated, in a great measure, it is believed, by the com- 
mercial considerations referred to in our first Lecture. Be this as it 
may, by her influence, the authorities of Brazil, in 1840 and 1841, 
made the attempt to suppress the slave trade, and the effect was 
immediate.^ General Espartero being in power in Spain, also acted 
in ffood faith in the execution of the conditions of the treaty with 
England, and appointed General Valdez, Governor of Cuba. When 
Vafdez entered upon his duties, the imports of slaves into Cuba were 
about 14,000 annually. Tlie first year of his government reduced 
the imports 8,000; and in 1842, the last year, the number imported 
was only 3,100 men.§ PoHtical changes occurring, the plans of these 
governments were soon abandoned, and the increasing demand for 
slave grown products, which was soon after created, by their admis- 
sion into the English markets, gave renewed activity to that trafl^c, 
increasing it, in 1847, to within a trifle of what it was from 1798 to 
1810, and in 1848 and 1849, it is believed, to an extent nearly equal 
to what it has been at any former period. || 

With these facts before us, a true conception can be formed of the 
past and present condition of the slave trade. 

It is evident that if England could have persisted in her exclusion 
of slave grown products from her markets, and could have rejected 
such free labor products as would have been replaced in other mar- 
kets by an equivalent of those of slave labor origin, that a death-blow 
would have been given to the slave trade, and, in its suppression, to 
the slavery of Cuba and Brazil. But, unfortunately, at the moment 
w\\t\\ negotiation abroad, combined vj\i\v protective duties at home, 
had enabled England to reduce the exports of slaves from Africa, in 
1845, to 36,758, and the imports into Brazil to 22,700 ; the clamor 
in England, for a full supply of sugar, forced the government, first 

« See table, present lecture, p. 32. t London Times, 1849. 
X Speech of Sir R. Peel in British Parliament, 1844. § Ibid. 
II Westminster Review, 1850, p. 265, states that the imports of slaves into Bra- 
zil in 1848 were 72,000, a larger number than at any former period. 



Present Relations of Free Labor and Slave Labor. 37 

to admit free labor sugar, and next, through the predominance of 
free-trade principles, slave labor sugar also. These acts at once 
opened up a market of such importance to countries employing slave 
labor, that an irresistible impetus was given to the slave trade, stimu- 
lating those engaged in it to break through every treaty stipulation, 
and bid defiance to all the physical force that can be arrayed against 
them. 

It was the advancing demand for slave grown products, created by 
the causes before stated, that made it impossil)le for the governments 
of Spain and Brazil to act in good faith in the suppression of the slave 
trade. Governments cannot go much in advance of the public senti- 
ment of tbeir people, nor can tliey long remain much behind it. The 
positions of England and the United States, on the slave trade, were 
the result of the correct moral sentiment existing among tlieir people. 
But the people of Spain and Brazil, governed only by commercial 
considerations, and not by motives of philanthropy or the principles 
of equity, looked only to the profits to be made by continuing the 
slave trade, and cared nothing for the amount of human woe induced, 
if they could but amass fortunes to themselves. These governments, 
therefore could not resist the tide of public sentiment; and their 
policy being changed, a rapidly-increasing -flood of misery has 
continued to roll on, wave after wave, until humanity shudders at 
beholding the dark and dismal deluge continually dashing in upon the 
shores of the southern portion of our continent. 

That the legislative measures adopted for the suppression of the 
slave trade and the abolition of slavery, have tended to increase and 
extend the evils they were designed to destroy, is not an opinion of 
recent origin, but one of very general belief in England. The pres- 
ent is, perhaps, the first effort to classify the facts and demonstrate 
the proposition. But that British legislation directly tended to this 
result, has been frequendy asserted, by many of the most intelli- 
gent Englishmen, with great positiveness ; and more than this, it was 
predicted, with equal positiveness, by men who understood human 
nature better than those controling the movement, that their mea- 
sures would certainly produce the results which have followed. In 
proof of this we need only quote a few paragraphs. The first is one 
embracing predictions of the consequences that would follow the 
adoption of the course of legislation proposed It will be found in 
the Westminster Review, 1849. 

" We cannot abolish slavery and the slave trade — we can only 
clear ourselves of them ; and we may clear ourselves of them, say- 
ing we are abolishing them, in a way to strengthen them. It is not 
abolishing them to sliift them from the West Indies to Cuba. By 
our way of ridding ourselves of slavery, we are making slaves more 
valuable and the slave trade more profitable, and increasing the inter- 
est of all other nations in buying, and selling, and keeping slaves. 
We shall pay $100,000,000, and millions on millions besides, in 
the price of sugar and loss of capital for confirming slavery and the 
slave trade. To expect other nations to follow our example by 



38 Present Belations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 

making it their interest not to do it, is not very wise. The way to 
abolish slavery is to make it contrary to the interest of the slave- 
dealer and slaveholder." 

The remaining paragraphs are confirmatory of our proposition, 
and are fiom sources entitled to great respect. 

" Fifteen years ago we thought we had done with the slave trade 
and slavery. But these odious subjects come back to us. The 
dark specters are not laid. One hundred and forty millions is the 
estimate of the sum of money spent to destroy them. Hundreds of 
associations, thousands of committees, public speeches, sermons, 
prayers, &c., &c., &c., have all been used as exorcisms to lay the 
specters of the bondage and the traffic which degrade men to the level 
of domestic animals. Our poorer people have been deprived of 
comforts which would have sweetened, literally and figuratively, their 
existence, because we would deal heroically with slavery and the 
slave trade. The chains of the negro have long been broken in mar- 
ble. The fame of many renowned names have been won by feats 
of eloquence and zeal in this sacred cause. We celebrated many 
victories over the iniquity. But lo ! slavery and the slave trade are 
stronger than ever, and more horrific than ever. On this subject, 
England has done two noble things, and committed two blunders. 
The nobleness has been ethical, and the blunders have been econom- 
ical. Narrowness has been the source of the evils. Christian ethics 
had highly cultivated the consciences of the abolitionists, but they 
were ignorant of economical science."* 

After referring to the modifications of the sugar duties, by Parlia- 
ment, and the scarcity of the supplies of sugar in the French mar- 
kets consequent upon emancipation in Hayti, Blackwood's Magazine 
says : t 

"To provide against the evidently approaching crisis in the supply 
of sugar in the British market, we have thrown open our harbors to 
slave-grown sugar from every quarter of the globe ; and from the 
rapid decline in the West India Islands, even before this last coup-de- 
o-race was given them by the application of free-trade principles to 
their produce, it is painfully evident that a result precisely similar (to 
what occured in Hayti.) is about to take place in the British colonies. 
And it is little consolation to find that this injustice has recoiled upon 
the heads of the nation which perpetrated it, and that the decline in 
the consumption of British manufactures by the West India islands 
is becoming proportioned to the ruin we have inflicted on them. 

"But most of all has this concatenation of fanaticism, infatuation, 
and injustice proved pernicious to the negro race, for whose benefit 
the changes were all undertaken. Happy would it have been for 
them if the British slave trade had never been abohshed; and they 
had ci'ossed the Atlantic chiefly in Liverpool or Glasgow slave-ships, 
and been brought to the British West India Islands ! For then the 



* Westminster Review, Oct. 1849. t January, 1843, p. G, 7. 



Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 39 

slave trade M-as subject to our direction, and regulations might have 
been adopted to place it npon the best possible looting for its unhappy- 
victims. But now we have thrown it entirely into the hands of the 
Spaniards and Portuguese, over whom we have no sort of control, 
and who exercise it in so frightful a manner that the heart absolutely 
sickens at the thought of the amount of human suffering at the cost 
of ivhich ive have reduced the price of sugar to sixpence a pound. 
Compared with it, the English slave-ships and English slavery were 
an earthly paradise. Mr. Buxton, the great anti-slavery advocate, 
admitted, some years ago, that the " number of blacks who now 
cross the Atlantic, is double what it was when Wilberforce and 
Clarkson first began their benevolent labors."* Now, under the fos- 
tering influence of free-trade in sugar, it may reasonably be expected 
that ill a few years, the ivhole, or nearly the whole sugar consumed 
by Europe, will be raised by the slave colonies, and wrung by the 
lash from the most wretched species of slaves — those of Cuba and 
Brazil ! Moreover, the slave trade, to supply them, will be triple 
what it was in 1789, when the movement in favor of the negro popu- 
lation began ! Thus, by the combined effects of fanaticism, igno- 
rance, presumption, and free trade, we shall have succeeded, by the 
middle of this century, in totally destroying our own sugar colonies ; 
adding, to no purpose, $100,000,000 to our national debt ; annihilating 
property to the amount of $650,000,000 in our own (colonial) do- 
mains ; doubling the produce of foreign slave possessions ; cutting off 
a market oi' $17,500,000 a year for our manufactures ; and tripling 
the slave trade in extent, and quadrupling it in horror, throughout the 
globe." 

Another writer specifies more fully the effects of these measures.! 

" Tlie impulse which the government act of 1846 has given to the 
slave trade iu every part of the world, is something perfectly enor- 
mous ; but its mischievous and inhuman effects will be best understood 
by a reference to ascertained facts. Prior to 1846, the traffic in 
slaves between the African coast and the Spanish colonies had been 
gradually declining, and had in fact almost disappeared. The exclu- 
sion of slave-grown sugars from our home market had nearly forced 
the Cuban proprietors into a different system, and arrangements were 
pending in that Colony for the emancipation of the slaves, just at the 
time Lord John Russell came forward in favor of the chain and the 
lash, and all was changed. "The value of field negroes in Cuba had 
risen (in the course of the two years, from 1846 to 1848) from 300 
to 500 dollars each, a price that would speedily bring a supply from 
the coast." " We will not, forsooth, permit foreign nations to traffic 
in slaves, and yet we give them the monopoly of our market, know- 
ing all the while that upon that importation alone we are dependant 
for a cheap supply — clieap sugar means cheap slaves.''' " Why 
did we destroy that market in Jamaica which we so etigerly sieze in 

* Buxton on tlie Slave trade, p. 172. 

t Blackwood's Magazine, Feb. 1848, p. 2.35, 236. 



40 Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 

Brazil ? " " Great Britain, after forcing the Emancipation Act on 
her colonies, and in the most solemn manner announcing, in a voice 
of thunder, her future determined opposition to the existence of the 
traffic in slaves, at once took a course which made her the customer 
of less scrupulous countries, and the largest encourager of that odious 
traffic in the world, thus ruining her own colonies." 

Quotations of similar expressions of opinion might be multiplied 
indefiuitely, but enough have been given. It may be added, however, 
that the North British Review, in a careful digest of the evidence 
contained in the six Reports on the Slave Trade and Slavery, made 
to Parliament, within the last two years, is led to this conclusion : 
That England's coersive measures have not merely failed to check 
the supply of slaves to Brazil, but that, on the other hand, they have 
had the effect of greatly aggravating the horrors of the middle 
passage, and the sufferings endured by the negroes in the barracoons 
on the coast of Africa, as well as very materially prejudicing the 
interests of British merchants trading to that country. This failure 
of the coercive policy for the suppression of the slave trade, the 
Reviewers contend, "results from its unsoundness in principle." 

IV. That the governments named, cannot hope to escape from the 
necessity of consuming the products of slave labor, except by call- 
ing into active service, on an extensive scale, the free labor of 
countries not at present producing the commodities upon which 
slave labor is employed. 

In the discussion of our first proposition, we proved that the tropical 
countries, where slavery has been abolished, have failed to furnish to 
commerce, since emancipation, an amount of products equal to what 
they had previously supplied. In discussing some of the other pro- 
positions, it appeared that the whole free labor exports from the 
Asiatic portion of the Eastern Hemisphere, added to those of the 
Western, had fallen far short of supplying the demands of Europe 
and America. It also appeared that to this cause was principally 
due the vast increase of the slave trade during the present century. 
To sustain our fourth proposition, it will be necessary to show, 
that the free labor to which we have referred, cannot be so stimulated 
as to make it sufficiently productive to compete with, and displace, 
the fruits of slave labor in the markets of the world. 

When the non-progressive character of the population of Pagan 
countries is considered, but litde aid will be expected from the Asi- 
atic portion of the Eastern Hemisphere,* in efforts to make free labor 
compete with slave labor, in tropical cultivation. The inquiries into 
this subject, may, therefore, be confined to the Western Hemisphere. 
To understand the relations which the free labor and the slave labor, 
of this hemisphere, bear to each other, and the capability of the first 
to compete with the last, it is necessary to state the proportion which 
the number of persons of the one class bear to those of the other. 

* Present Lecture, p. 18. 



Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 41 

The amount of tlie population of the English and French West 
India Colonies, emancipated from slavery, has been already stated,* 
and comprehends nearly the whole of the free labor employed in the 
cultivation of the commodities we have been considering. Estima- 
ting the increase of the population of Hayti, since emancipation, at 
40 per cent., and that of the English colonies at 20 per cent., will 
give them a present population of 1,400,000. To this must be added 
the persons emancipated by France, in 18-18, making the total free 
labor forces, within the limits under consideration, about 1,657,000 
persons. Agamst this free population there is arrayed the following 
number of slaves : t 

United States, 3,252,000 

Brazil, 3,250,000 

Spanish Colonies, 900,000 

Dutch Colonies, 85,000 

South American Republics, 140,000 

African Settlements, 30,000 

Total slave population, 7,657,000 

Free labor do. above stated, 1,657,000 

Excess of slave population, 6,000,000 

Of the number of slaves in the United States, about 1,000,000 are 
in Slates which do not produce cotton and sugar. Deducting these, 
will leave 6,657,000 slaves arrayed against 1,657,000 free persons, or 
5,000,000 more slaves than freemen. 

These figures testify, with unequivocal distinctness, that the free 
population, above named, cannot be made to compete with the slave 
population, in tropical cultivation. In addition to tlie immense dis- 
parity of numbers, a moment's consideration will make it evident, 
that, even were their numbers equal, the circumstances under which 
the people, called free, are placed, would still make it impossible to 
stimulate them to such a degree of industry, that their voluntary 
labor would be equally productive with the compuhory labor of the 
slaves. 

A very brief examination will show, that this is not an exaggerated 
view of the condition of the people under consideration. In refer- 
ring to Hayti, we need only direct attention to a preceding tablej as 
an index of its industry, and to our second lecture|i for a correct view 
of its social and moral condition. The other French colonies, in nine 
months of their first year of freedom, have diminished their exports 
of sugar, nearly 72,000,000 lbs.§ 

The British West Indies, it may safely be said, have a free popu- 
lation whose industry cannot be made to compete with even an equal 
amount of slave labor. In addition to the extensive array of facts 

* Present Lecture, p. 9. 

+ Tenth Report of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. We add 
for Texas only 22,000, and estimate the other States up to 1850, at 3 per cent, 
per annum, siuco 1840. But Texas has at least 40,000. 

\ Page 11. II Pages 42, 43. § Present lecture, p. 12. 



42 Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 

submitted in the present and former lectures, the public have recently- 
been supplied with much new and important intbrmalion from Ja- 
maica, by Mr. Bigelow, one of the editors of the New York Evening 
Post, a leading Anti-Slavery paper. 

This genUeman has recently visited Jamaica, and made a careful 
examination of its condition. He represents industry as at the lowest 
ebb ; and that the downward tendencies of the island cannot be more 
rapid than at present. A degrading estimate is put upon labor, and a 
white man is never seen at work upon the estates. The blacks, 
" with the average sequence of negro logic, infer that if gentlemen 
never work, they have only to abstain from work to be gentlemen." 
In the city of Kingston, he says, one looks and listens in vain for 
the noise of carts and the bustle of busy men ; no one seems to be in 
a hurry ; but few are doing anything ; while the mass of the popula- 
tion are lounging about in idleness and rags. Nor is there any present 
hope that these habits of indolence will be abandoned ; because there 
is absolutely nothing to stimulate the majority of the people to in- 
dustry and to efforts for intellectual and moral advancement. The 
greater portion of the lands under cnltivation is held by owners of 
immense estates, and but little encouragement is extended to the people 
to cultivate small tracts, because this policy would draw off the labor 
from the sugar estates. The property qualification of voters is fixed 
so high as to exclude the mass of the people from any participatibn in 
the government of the island, or in the enactment of the laws that are to 
control them. Out of a population in Jamaica, of 400,000, of whom 
16,000 are white, the average vote of the island has never exceeded 
3,000. The center of legislative control is in London, and the mem- 
bers of the colonial legislature are mere shadows, destitute of the vital 
functions of legislators. The veto power of the governor, who is ap- 
pointed by the Queen, enables him practically to control all legisla- 
tion. The enormous property qualification required to make a man 
eligible to a seat in the legislature, excludes all but the landholders 
from that body. By this arrangement all the energies of legislation 
are exerted to promote the growth and sale of sugar and rum. In ad- 
dition to other depressing influences, young men of moderate means, 
or who are poor, cannot reach the profession of the law, because none 
can practice at the bar except such as have pursued their studies in 
England, and been admitted there. So little do those who control 
public affairs, comprehend the principles of human action, that though 
wages are only 18| to 25 cents a day, (the laborer boarding himself,) 
the planters all imagine that a rediiction of wages is essential to the 
revival of agricultural prosperity. 

Such are the disadvantages under which these poor, oppressed 
Africans labor in the West Indies, and such the utter hopelessness 
of their being able to make much progress, that, next to their brethren 
yet in slavery, they demand, and should receive, the sympathies of 
the christian world. 

It would have been difficult to convince the world, that such uttei 
ruin, as has occurred in Jamaica, could have been produced by any 



Present Relations of Free Lobar to Slave Labor. 43 

course of legislation. But Mr. Bigelow reveals facts upon this sub- 
ject that are truly astounding. He says : 

"Since 1832, out of the six hundred and fifty-three sugar estates 
then in cultivation more than one hundred and iifty have been aban- 
doned and broken up. This has thrown out of culiivation over 200,- 
000 acres of rich land, which, in 1832, gave employment to about 
30,000 kiborers, and yielded over 25,600,000 lbs. of sugar, and over 
6,000 puncheons of rum. During the same period, over five hun- 
dred coffee plantations have also been abandoned and their works 
broken up. This threw out of cultivation over 200,000 acres more of 
land, which in 1832 required the labor of over 30,000 men." 

An estate formerly selling for $90,000, in 1845, sold for $5,000. 
Another, which once cost an equal sum, has been offered by its 
present owners for $7,500, and finding no purchaser, was abandoned. 
A multitude of such cases are embraced in Mr. Bigelow's letters, 
showing a general prostration of the commercial interests of the 
island. That an over-crowding of population can have no influence 
in checking the prosperity of Jamaica, is proved by the fact, that out 
of her 4,000,000 acres of land, all being of the most fertile kind, not 
over 500,000 acres have been brought under cultivation, or even 
appropriated. 

The low state of civilization, leaves the population of the British 
West Indies with k\v wants. It is asserted that the people of these 
islands are enabled to live in comfort, and acquire wealth, without, 
for the most part, laboring on the estates of the planters, lor more than 
three or four days in the week, and from five to seven hours in the 
day, so that they have no stimulant to perform an adequate amount 
of labor.* 

This condition of things puts it out of tlie power of the planters to 
produce sugar for less than .£20 per ton, on the average, while the 
cost in slave countries is only £l2t per ton. 

This discloses the fact that the planters of Cuba, employing slave 
labor, can manufacture sugar for £8 the ton less than those of Jamaica 
can produce it hy free labor. As one of the immediate results of this 
condition of things, it was asserted in 1848, that " the great influx of 
slave-grown produce into the English markets has, in the short space 
of six months, reduced the value of sugar from £26 to £14 per ton ; 
while, under ordinary circumstances of soil and season, the cost to us 
of placing it in the market is not less than £20 per ton."± 

It is well, here, to explain why it is that the duties on foreign 
sugar aflbrd no real protection to the English West India planter. 

" The slave sugars are all so much better manufactured, which the 
great command of labor enables them to do, that, to the refiner, they 
are intrinsically worth more than ours. In short, they prepare their 
sugars, whereas we cannot do so, and we pay duty at the same rate 
on an article which contains a quantity of molasses. So that, if the 

» Blackwood's Mag. 1848. p. 227. + lb. p. 2.30. 

i Blackwood's Mag. 1848, p. 230. Resolutions of a meeting at St. David's, 
Jamaica. 



44 Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 

duties were equalized, there would virtually be a bonus on the 
importation of foreign sugar. The refiners estimate the value of 
Havanna, in comparison with West India free sugar, as from three to 
five shillings per cvvt. belter in point of color and strength. The 
reason is, that these sugars are partially refined or clayed J'''* 

The relation in which foreign sugars stand to colonial, in the mar- 
kets of England, taking into account the protective duties, will be 
clearly seen by the following statement of the cost of production of 
each, with the duties added, and an allowance made for the extra 
value of the Cuban sugar over that of the English colonies, taking the 
period from July. 1850 to July, 1851 : 

British Muscovado costs planters per ton, £20 00s. 

Duty on do. per ton, 1 1 GO 

Total cost in market, £31 OOs. 

Cuban Muscovado, do. per ton, £12 OOs. 

Duty, per ton, 15 10 27 10 

Balance in favor Cuban planter, 3 10s. 

Add extra value of Cuban sugar, £4 per ton, 4 00 

Slave labor advantage over free labor, £7 10s. 

By reference to the table of duties, on a preceding page, it will be 
seen that if the present relations of the cost of production shall be 
maintained, when the duties become equalized, slave labor will have 
an advantage in the English market, if no change occurs in the duties, 
of £12 the ton.t The duty on both kinds will be, in 1854, 10s. the 
cvvt. or £10 the ton, and the extra value of Cuban sugar being the 
same, the profits of the slave labor sugar will be £12 the ton as above 
stated, viz : 

Cost of production of free labor, per ton, £20 OOs. 

Duty on do. per ton, 10 00 

Cost in market to planter £30 OOs. 

Cost of slave labor, do £12 OOs. 

Duty on do. 10 00 22 00 

Surplus profit of slave labor, 8 OOs. 

Extra value of do., ^ 4 00 

Total excess of profit to slaveholder, £12 OOs. 

Who cannot see that such advantages as the Cuban and Brazilian 
slaveholders now possess, may enable them to banish free labor sugars 
from the English markets ! But to gain a clear understanding of the 
reason why the slaveholding planters of Cuba, Brazil, &c., can pro- 
duce sugar at a cost so much lower than those of Jamaica, and other 
free labor tropical countries, it is necessary again to call attention to 
the difference in their ability to command labor. In the former 
countries, not including the United States, the planters can command 

* Blackwood's Mag. 1848, p. 230. 

■)■ The estimates have been made for Muscovadoes only, and the expense of 
freights not included. 



Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 45 

the labor of a slave population of 4,100,000, while the latter have 
only 1,657,000.* It must be noticed, also, that this slave population 
is compelled, under tlie lash, to perform a full day's work every day 
in the week, and that in crop time the labor is often extended to 
eighteen hours per day ;t while the free men of Jamaica, &.c., igno- 
rant, depressed, and discouraged, iy uneqiad laws, Qonieni themselves 
with leisurely putting in from five to seven hours in the day, during 
only three or four days of the week.ij: 

We certainly need not add anything more in support of the propo- 
sition, that free luhor, under present circumstances, cannot compete 
ivith slave labor in tropical cultivation, and that, therefore, christian 
governments cannot escape from the necessity of consuming slave 
labor products, except by calling into active service, on an extensive 
scale, the free labor of countries not at present producing the com- 
modities upon which slave labor is employed. 

V. That Africa is the principal field where free labor can be made to 
compete, successfully, with slave labor, in the production of 
exportable tropical commodities. 

To demonstrate the truth of this proposition it is demanded ; First, 
that it be shown that the soil and climate of Africa are well adapted 
to the production of Sugar, ('oflee, and Cotton ; and Second, that the 
natives can be successfully employed in their cultivation. 

In relation to the first point, there is no longer any doubt among 
intelligent men. Coffee, equal, if not superior, to that of Java or 
Mocha, is raised in Liberia, and can be easily cultivated to any 
extent. The shrub bears fruit thirty or forty years, each producing 
ten pounds annually. Cotton, of a superior quality, yielding two 
crops a year, is indigenous, and thrives twelve or fourteen years 
without renewing the plant. Sugar Cane grows in unrivaled lux- 
uriance ; and, as there are no frosts to be dreaded, can be brought to 
much greater perfection than in our Southern States. § Other articles 
of great value are raised in Liberia, but it is unnecessary lo specify 
them, or to enlarge this branch of our investigations; as Dr. J. fV. 
Liigenbecl, lute United States Agent, in Liberia, and Superintendent 
of tlie Medical School of the Colony is publishing a series of essays 
upon the subject. The Doctor resided five or six years in Africa, 
and had an excellent opportunity for employing his eminent talents 
to examine the Geography, the Productions, the Climate, as well as 
the Diseases of the INew Republic. His essays embrace all these 
topics, and afford ample information, in relation to Liberia, for all 
who wish to learn the facts. 

On the second point much information has been collected, and it 
is no longer doubted in Liberia, that the labor of natives can be made 
available. The Colony numbers about 150,000 souls. || Many 

* Present Lecture, p. 41. t Second Lecture, p. 38. 

X Present Lecture, p. 4.3. § African Repository, July, 1850. 

II President Roberts' message to Liberia Legislature, Dec, 1849. 



46 Present delations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 

of these natives are becoming industrious, by the example of the 
colonists, and the desire to possess the comforts of civilized life. 
Some are partially educated, and one, a few years ago, occupied a 
seat in the Lcjiislature. Many of them have married persons born 
in the United States, and thereby become more identified with the 
citizens of the Republic. The colonists, of ability, can secure, from 
the natives, all the labor necessary, at very low wages. Tiiis is now 
so well understood as to discour.ige those emigrants, from the United 
States, who desire to go as day laborers. 

Mr. Ed. J. Roye, a merchant of Monrovia, fully confirms this 
statement, in a letter to Mr. W. II. Burnham, of Zanesville, Ohio. 
He mentions it as the chief discouragement to emigrants dependent 
upon labor for a subsistence, but adds, that many of the poor Ameri- 
cans in the colony " are already turning their attention to farming, 
which pays well." " To men of character, education, wealth, and 
enterprise, nothing can be considered beyond their reach, and no 
station, in the Republic, too higli to be attained." * 

At first view this seems disheartening to the poor colored man; 
but to discerning men, Liberia presents stronger claims on this 
account. Mr. Roye's statement proves two things important to 
Europe and America. 1. That naiive labor can be had cheap. 2. 
That those emigrants who engage in agriculture, can do well. 

What is most important to elevate and ennoble the poor emigrant, 
is, to forget the days of his bondage, stand erect as a freeman, and 
depend alone upon the strength of his own arm, and the blessing of 
God. Cringing to others unmans him. To place him in circum- 
stances which will force him to agricultural or mechanical pursuits, 
is best calculated to create in his breast a feeling of manly indepen- 
dence. And, God willing, this is what Colonizationists are determined 
to do for the free colored people of the United States. 

The desire to possess the commodities supplied by the commerce 
of civilized nations is evidently much stronger in the people of 
Africa, even where the influence of the Colonies is but little felt, 
than in those of any other bariiarous country. This desire has been 
generated by the slave trade, and is the principal obstacle to its sup- 
pression. Having no fruits of agricultural labor to ofl^er for the arti- 
cles they desire, slave hunts are made the means of procuring slaves 
to give in exchange. And such is the strength with which this 
desire for traffic with foreigners operates, and such their unwilling- 
ness to be deprived of it, that in the late purchase of Gallinas, when 
the chiefs sold their territory to President Roberts, they expressly 
stipulated for tlie establishment of commerce upon a permanent basis. 
They knew very well that tlie slave trade was to cease from that 
moment, and, as an equivalent, demanded, not only a large sum of 
money, but that commissioners should be immediately appointed " to 
settle the wars in the country, [because ivars will now no longer be 

* This seems to have been prophetic language, as, since it was written, Mr. 
Roye has held a seat in the Legislature of Liberia, and been chosen Speaker of 
the House of Representatives. 



Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 47 

useful ivhen the captives taken cannot be sold,) and open the trades 
in Camwood, Ivory, and Palm oil, with the interior tribes; and also to 
settle among them, as soon as convenient, persons capable of instruct- 
ing them in the arts of Husbandry."* 

But can the native labor ol' xM'rica be made to compete with the 
slave labor of other tropicul countries, and supply the christian world 
with that immense amount of coflee, sugar, and cotton, it now con- 
sumes? Tiiis is the great question. If the native be left, without 
the aid of foreign intelligence, to develop his intellectual and moral 
powers, he must remain fitted only fur a life of slavery abroad, or of 
savage indolence at home. But if the Republic of Liberia be sup- 
plied with a suflicicnt number of industrious, intelligent, and moral 
emigrants, to enable it to extend its settlements and its laws around 
the coast, and into the interior, a few years only will elapse before 
the natives, coming under the influence of civilization, will experi- 
ence such an increase of wants as can be supplied only by industry. 
What has already occurred in the present settlements of Liberia will 
follow in all new ones, and a spirit of industry be awakened as far 
and as rapidly as the colonization of the country shall be accomplished. 

We have previously shownt that the stereotyped character of the 
Pagan nations of Eastern Asia, renders it ditlicult to stimulate the 
inhabitants to a much greater degree of industry than already exists, 
and that sucli free labor cannot compete with slave labor. Why, 
then, should we expect that the native labor of heathen Africa should 
be more available, and made to compete with slave labor ? The 
answer to this question is obvious. Without the introduction of 
Christian civilization, nrilher of them can progress. But the hum- 
ble African yields more readily to the instruction of the Christian 
missionary than the proud Asiatic. The hope of Africa's earlier 
civilization is, therefore, daily brightening, and the probability of 
exciting iis inhabitants to industry becoming more certain. 

We close this part of the inquiry by a quotation from the Annual 
Report of the American Missionary Association, fcr 1849, which not 
only affords an explanation of the causes that make Asia less acces- 
sible to the Gospel than Africa, but supplies additional testimony in 
regard to the adaptation of the soil of Africa to the production of 
sugar and cotton. This mission had its origin in the liberation, and 
return to Africa, of the Jlmistad slaves. It is located at Kavv-Mendi, 
on the Western coast of Africa, some distance from the sea, and lies 
between Sierra Leone and Liberia. The Rev. Mr. Thompson, once 
imprisoned in the Penitentiary of the State of Missouri, for aiding 
slaves to escape from their masters, is now at the head of this mis- 
sion. This testimony is valuable, coming, as it does, from Aboli- 
tionists, from whom colonization in Africa has received but little 
countenance. The Report says : 

" The sugar cane and cotton grow well in that country, and if 
American Christians could send out business men, who could teach 

* LL-ttcr of President Roberts, May 17, 1850. t Page 18. 



48 Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 

natives tlie mamifacture of sugar, and the best method of raising 
cotton, it would contribute much to the overthrow of slavery, and 
facilitate the progress of tlie gospel. The mission makes earnest 
appeals for such assistance." The Report also says, that "Africa 
presents some peculiar advantages for missionary work, and some 
strong claims upon American christians for help." It sums them up 
as follows : 

" 1. That country is nearer to us than any other foreign mis- 
sionary field. 

" 2. The country is apparently open to us, and its governments 
will offer no serious opposition to our entering any part of it. 

" 3. The people see and appreciate the superiority of men in civil- 
ized life, and desire the cultivation which will raise them to the same 
grade. 

"4. There is there, no hoary and venerated system of supersti- 
tion, inwrought into the forms of society, and presenting at every 
point opposition to change. 

"A reason more powerful, perhaps, than any other, to induce us to 
engage in this work, is the deep degradation of Africa, superinduced by 
the slave trade, in which Americans have taken so prominent a part." 

Much additional testimony on this subject might be presented, but 
time will not permit. We shall, therefore, close our discussion of 
this proposition with a brief statement of the main facts by which its 
truth is sustained. 

Could England and the United States be induced to engage ener- 
getically, to promote the growth of coffee, sugar, and cotton, in Africa, 
they would gain an immense advantage over the planters of Cuba 
and Brazil, and be able lo strike an efficient blow at the slave trade 
and slavery. What are the facts ? 

For every 300 men made available, by the slave trade, to the 
Cuban and BraziUian planters, Africa loses 1,000;* or the proportion 
may be stated as three to ten. In the transfer of the three to Cuba 
and Brazil, their constitutions are impaired by the "middle passage," 
and in seven years they sink beneath the oppressive labor to which 
they are subjected. Their places must be supplied, at least every 
seven years, by //tree others from Africa, subjecting her lo the loss of 
another ten. At every point in Africa, occupied by a colony, the 
slave trade is at once excluded, and its agents are driven to other 
points to secure their victims. This will leave, at the places occu- 
pied, the whole ten men who had formerly been sacrificed to supply 
three to the Cuban planters. 

Now, though the industry of the native African should fall far 
below the standard of tlie ever-active and enterprising ^^nglo Saxon; 
yet a little consideration will enable us to perceive that, under the 
circumstances, the native popidation of Africa will be able, not only 
to compete with the slaves of Cuba and Brazil, but will constitute the 
only reliable force for the suppression of the slave trade. 



* Buxton, see Lecture First, p. 8. 



Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 49 

The maximum of labor required of the three slaves in Cuba, is 
eighteen hours a day.* By preventing the transfer of these three 
men, we siiuU liave ten to employ in Africa. If these ten men can 
be induced to labor only five hours and a half per day, the product 
will more than equal that of the three in Cuba. The case would 
stand thus : 

3 slaves in Cuba, laboring 18 hours per day = 54 hours. 
10 freemen in Africa " 5^ " " = 55 " 

The ten men in Africa, laboring but 5^ hours per day, would, there- 
fore, be able to compete with the three in Cuba or Brazil. 

The reason that Jamaica, or any of the oiher free labor colonies, 
cannot compete with Cuba, Brazil, &c., is, that the freemen of the 
former, eidier from indolent habits, or from attention to cultivating 
then- own small tracts of land, or from being engaged in other pur- 
suits, do not choose to labor tor the sugar planters more than from 
five to seven hours a day, and from three to four days in the week.^ 
It is not asserted, tliat while engaged, the free laborer does not per- 
form as much work as a slave. The difficulty in Jamaica is, that the 
planters, out of the free population, cannot Jind men enough, to put 
in as many hours labtjr, as those of Cuba, by a free use of the whip, 
are able to obtain from tlieir slaves. Laboring so irregularly, even 
were their numbers equal, it would be impossible for the 1,657,000 
colored freemen of the Western Hemisphere to compete with the 
7,657,000 slaves which it includes. J 'i'lie difficulty in making the 
free lalior of the Britii^h and French West Indies compete with the 
slave labor of Cuba and Brazil, arises, therefore, from the want of an 
equal number of hands willing to perform an equal amount of labor 
at an equal cost. The American Colonization Society has discovered 
that this discrepancy can be remedied by a direct attention to Africa, 
which shall call into activity, as free laborers, its 160,000,000 of 
people, as rivals, in tropical cultivation, to the before mentioned 7,657,- 
000 slaves. But to obtain a clear conception of the economical 
advanlages of employing the people of Africa 7/pon their own soil, 
over that of transporting them to Cuba and Brazil, it must be recol- 
lected, that as soon as the ten men in Africa could be persuaded to 
labor ten hours a day, they would double the products of the three 
in Cuba. It nuist also be remembered, that the ten, remaining in 
their native climate, and belonging to a race of the greatest long- 
evity known, could be relied upon as regular laborers, for a much 
longer period than the three enfeebled and overworked slaves of 
Cuba. This remark applies equally to the whole African population. 
Under these circumstances, it is certain that ihe free labor of Africa, 
under proper regulations and stimulants, can be made to compete with 
the slave labor of Brazil and the Spanish Colonies. 

But there is another fact, of much importance, to be considered. 

*See Lecture Second, p. .38. f Present Lecture, p. 43. 

T Present Lecture, p. 40 to 44. 
4 



50 Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 

The slave population of Brazil and the Spanish Colonies, numbering 
4,100,000, or more than one half of the whole number in the West- 
ern Hemisphere, is maintained alone by the slave trade. Des'troy 
this trade, and their plantations would dwindle into insignificance, or 
become extinct. From the rapid mortality of the imported slaves, 
these plantations require restocking from Africa every seven years. 
Cut oft' this supply, and Cuba and Brazil would at once be rendered 
incapable of flooding the markets with cheap slave labor products, to 
the exclusion of free labor commodities. 

We have seen that the exports from the British West Indies began 
to decline from the prohibition of the slave trade, in 1808, and reached 
their minimum since the emancipation in 1838.* The diminution 
of the exports of coffee and sugar from tlie British and French West 
Indies, from the periods above stated, tended to increase slavery and 
encourage the slave trade.f The constantly increasing demand for 
these products must be supplied. Cuba and Brazil endeavored, by 
increasing their number of slaves, to supply the deficiency. This 
extended the slave trade, and it has continued to increase, with two 
or three slight variations, until the present raoment.± Interrupt the 
kidnapping of slaves from Africa, and no new field can be found to 
supply the market. Hence, to destroy the slave trade, would directly 
diminish the exports of sugar and coffee from Cuba and Brazil. 

But if these prolific fountains are dried up, how is the continually 
increasing demand for these products to be supplied? How are the 
United States, England, and the Continent of Europe to be furnished 
with these indispensable articles ? Africa seems to furnish the only 
hope. Let England, France, and the United States, make a united 
effort to extend the benefits of Christian civilization, not only around 
the coast, but into the heart of this hitherto benighted portion of the 
earth, and the most cheering results might be anticipated. Let ac- 
cumulated wealth pour her exhaustless treasures in the lap of the 
Colonization Society, enabling it to send out to Africa multitudes of 
civilized and enlightened men, to diffuse intelligence and freedom 
along the shores of its rivers, and over its mountains and plains ! 
Let England, with her commerce, her weahh, her public spirit, and 
her Christianity, exert her powerful influences in extending her com- 
merce, her enterprii-e, and her civilization, among the natives of this 
extensive continent! Let France unite her energies in these im-i 
porlant efibrts, and soon Africa, free and prosperous, might almost 
supply the world with the products to which we have referred. 

From the facts before stated, it is evident that the free labor of the 
West Indies is poiverless for the suppression of the slave trade. It 
furnishes but a limited supply of coffee and sugar, and cannot lessen 
the immense demand for these products, which gives to that trade its 
profitable character. These products are of prime necessity and ioi' 
portance to the Christian world; and, while such a large proportion 



* Present Lecture, p. 25. + See page 30 to 40, present Lecture. 

i Present Lecture, p. 32 



Present Relalions of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 51 

of them are produced by Cuba and Brazil, we are compelled to up- 
hold slavery and the slave trade by their consumption. But establish 
their cultivation and supply, by free labor, upon a permanent basis, 
and we shall ere long be released from this dire necessity. Africa 
presents the principal, if not the only field, where all the means of 
thus extensively cultivating sugar, coffee, and cotton, by free labor, 
can be commanded, and from which the great markets of the world 
can be successfully supplied. The reasons for this opinion may be 
thus slated : 

If die products of free labor can be increased, they will displace an 
equal amount of the products of slave labor, 'i'his will diminish the 
demand for slaves, and, consequenUy, lessen the extent of the slave 
trade. But the hands now employed in free labor cannot, to any 
great degree, increase their products, even at the present cost, and 
things must remain as they now are until additional free labor is else- 
where employed. These additional laborers. Hilling to work for 
low wages, can only be found in suthcient numbers among the teeming 
population of Africa.* 

Africa, then, is the field, and its 160,000,000 of men must supply 
the laborers necessary to accomplish this great work. The increasing 
demand for sugar and coflee has placed the wants and interests of 
Christendom in opposition to the destruction of the slave trade. 
Cuba and Brazil furnish these great staples for the market, by slaves, 
as we have seen, brought from Africa. Hence, the Christian world, 
by consuming these products, have indirecdy sustained both slavery 
and this abominable Iraftic. But let ample plantations be opened and 
cultivated in Africa, sufficient to supply the market, and you have 
removed the grand obstacle to the entire destruction of this trade in 
blood. 

To accomplish an object so desirable, more extensive plans must 
be devised; the Colonization Society must enlarge the sphere of its 
operations, the number ancj character of emigrants must be increased, 
and a universal effort put forth, commensurate with the great object 
to be accomplislied. 

But the direct suppression of the slave trade, as a preliminary step 
in the progress of Alrican redemption, is impossible. The combined 
efforts of Christendom, in a forty years' struggle, have failed even in 
checking this enormous outrage upon humanity. It may be circum- 
scribed, diminished, and partially suppressed, but it must depend, for 
its final destruction, upon the political regeneration, together with the 
intellectual elevation and moral redemption of the entire continent. 

The alternative seems already forced upon Christendom, either to 
encourage slavery and the slave trade, by continuing to consume the 
produce of Brazil and Cuba, or to set about speedily accomplishing 
the civilization of Africa. 

* The cultivation of cotton has been commenced at the British Colony of 
Port Natal, in S. E. Africa, says the London Economist, and the labor of the 
Zooloos can be had at ten shillings the month. The wages of native laborers is 
about the same at Liberia. 



52 Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 

The great theater, then, upon which the battle between free labor 
and slave labor is to be fought, is in Africa; and colonization is the 
all-potent agent which is to marshal the free labor forces, and lead 
them on to victory. But this warfare, unlike all preceding contests, 
is one literally demanding that every sword shall be beaten into 
a ploivshare, and every spear into a pruninghook. In this campaign, 
tilling the soil, and not slaying men, is the duty required ; and the 
advantacres are so decidedly with free labor, tliat ultimate success is 
certain. Each industrious emigrant to an African colony, will more 
than equal a dozen slaves laboring elsewhere. His example and his 
influence, acting upon the native population, will excite to industry a 
dozen, or twenty, or a hundred more ; and these, again, will exert an 
influence upon others, and so on indefinitely. 

Who can doubt, under such circumstances, that Africa, with its 
multitudinous population, is the field where free labor may be made 
successfully to compete with slave labor, in the productions to which 
we have so often referred, and that the Colonization Society is the 
medium through which, in the Providence of God, the slave trade is 
to be finally destroyed ? 

VI. That there are moral forces and commercial considerations 
now in operation, which will, necessarily, impel christian govern- 
ments to exert their influence for the civilization of Africa, and the 
promotion of the prosperity of the Republic of liiberia, as the 
principal agency in this great work, and that in these facts lies our 
encouragement to persevere in our colonization eflorts. 

This proposition opens up a wide field of discussion, but in its 
consideration we must be brief. 

There have been moral forces acting upon England and the Uni- 
ted States, for many years past, to such an extent that these govern- 
ments have been driven to the adoption of energetic measures for 
ameliorating the condition of the people of Africa. Much has been 
done in these efl!brts, and much more remains to be done. In the 
United States, 460,000 colored people have obtained tjieir freedom, 
and in the English Colonies nearly 800,000 rejoice in being released 
from bondage. The slave trade has been prohibited, declared piracy, 
and costly efforts for its suppression long prosecuted. But though 
the measures devised, for the relief of the African nice, by these 
governments, have failed in the accomplishment of all the good anti- 
cipated, and in some respects, most sadly failed ; yet these moral 
forces hi.ve lost none of their power, but are still propelhng the two 
nations onward to the final accomplishment of the great work of 
Africa's redemption from barbarism. During the eonrse of these 
eff'orts much light has been thrown on this subject, and it is believed 
that, through the agency of the Colonization Society, the proper 
principles have been developed by which the suppression of the slave 
trade and the civilization of Africa may be eff'ected. 

In makinif this declaration, we do not intend to claim more of 



Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 53 

wisdom and philanthropy for the United States than for England. The 
difierence in the character of the measures aiiopted, and the difference 
in the results attained, have been caused by the difference in the 
circumstances of the people of the two countries. Fifty years ago 
the English people looked to the Crown and Parliament, to execute 
almost every enterprise of a religious or benevolent character. That 
government, like all others, in all its movements, has to consider well 
the promotion of its own interests. To adopt any other rule of 
action, is deliberately to aim at self-destruction. The danger, then, 
with nations, as with individuals, when suffering humanity makes its 
appeal, is that the measures adopted for relief, may include more 
of the selji>ih than of the benevolent principle, and failure, or only 
partial success, attend the efforts made. 

When the moral forces directed against the slave trade and slavery, 
by the people of England, reached the government in sufficient power 
to compel it to action, that great leading interest of the British nation, 
the comniercial element, became too closely blended with the benev- 
olent, and die policy adopted proved to be too narrow to remove the 
evils sought to be destroyed.. 

In the United States, the moral forces commenced their opera- 
tions at a very early period, and our independence had scarcely been 
attained, when the government enacted its laws for prohibiting the 
slave trade, and declared it piracy.* Since that period, they have 
acted with less force upon the government, and nearly all subsequent 
efforts have either been by a few of the States, separately, or by the 
people. This course of action seems more in accordance with, and 
necessarily to grow out of, the spirit of our free institutions. While 
the government suppresses great public evils, and oversees the civil 
and military affairs of the nation, it only protects citizens in all their 
benevolent enterprises and religious interests, but never undertakes to 
conduct or control these movements for the people. The people, 
therefore, do not depend upon the government to conduct such affairs, 
but execute, freely, their own purposes, in accordance with their 
own peculiar views. The efforts of our people, in behalf of the 
African race, have been conducted by associations of individuals, 
and, consequently, the schemes adopted have borne the impress of 
the minds tiiat conceived and conducted them. This has been em- 
phatically true of the American Colonization Society. Individual or 
governmental interests being in no way involved in liiis enterprise, 
and it being, in its origin, chiefly under the control of christian men, 
it took the broadest possible ground that christian philanthropy dic- 
tated, and thus a scheme was devised broad enough to accomplisli the 
destruction of the slave trade, and the work of Africa's redemption. 
The religions element predominated in its organization, and the 
C07nmercial was excluded. 

Had this work been undertaken by our government, it would, no 
doubt, have adopted the policy of England, and made the colony in 



* See Lectures first and second. 



54 Present Relaiions of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 

Africa subservient to the interests of the parent country. Such, it 
must be expected, would have been the action of all governments in 
like cases. But the Colonization Society, originating solely in chris- 
tian benevolence, has only sought the welfare of the African people, 
and aimed at creating for them an independent government, to be 
conducted wlioUy by themselves. In this it has succeeded ; and not 
in this only, but it has developed a practical plan for the suppression 
of the slave trade, in the success of which all the nations are equally 
interested, and all may equally cooperate. 

'I'his view of the tendency of colonization in Africa, is now 
generally entertained. Besides many other authorities of the highest 
order, it is very fully admitted by a committee of the British Parlia- 
ment, in a recent Report on the Slave Trade. The committee first 
show that England's long-cherished plan of an armed repression of 
the slave trade — costing her one hundred and forty millions of dol- 
lars, and hundreds of the lives of her subjects — had failed in its 
object, and that no modification in the system can be expected to 
succeed, and then close with the following testimony to the system of 
colonization, as llie most effective mode of destroying that traffic: 

"Your committee entertain the hope, that the internal improve- 
ment and civilization of Africa will be one of the most effective 
means of checking the .slave trade, and for this purpose, that the 
instruction of the natives by missionary labors, by education, and by 
all other practical efforts, and the extension of legitimate commerce, 
ought to be encouraged wherever the influence of England can be 
directed, and especially where it has already been beneficially 
exerted."* 

This, then, is the position, in reference to the African question, 
into whicli we have been conducted by the operation of the moral 
forces upon England and the United States. Our scheme of Coloni- 
zation, being ivholly indepejident of national interests, except what 
are common to all; and including within itself all the elements 
necessary to secure the civilization of Africa and the destruction of 
the slave trade ; now receives the approbation of the philanthropists 
of both countries, and secures to the Republic of Liberia, from the 
government ol England, that countenance and aid which is the surest 
guarantee of iis rising importance in the benevolent work of African 
regeneration. If, therefore. Colonization can receive siiflicient aid to 
develop, fully, the elements of its organization, a speedy consum- 
mation of tlie great work it has in view may be anticipated. 

From whence, then, are the additional aids to come, which, added 
to the moral forces in operation, shall propel, with suflScient rapidity, 
this great work of African civilization, and free the world from the 
reproach and the curse of the slave trade ? They exist, principally, 
it is believed, in the commercial consideralions which l)egin to 
demand, most imperiously, that the rich lands of tropical Africa shall 
be brought uniler cultivation, and made to yield to commerce those 



* North British Review, August, 1849, p. 255. 



Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 55 

articles, which free labor and slave labor, both combined, are now 
incapable of furnishing, in adequate quantities, from the fields at 
present cultivated. 

The moral forces, though acting with much energy, and have in 
other respects, doing mnch good, been unable to destroy the slave 
trade, because ot the counteracting influence of tfie commercial con- 
siderations enlisted in its behalf. But the wants of commerce arc 
beginning to demand the execution of the plans which the n-.oral 
forces alone could not perform. Then, as the two great elements of 
success now coincide^ it seems that their influence must be irresisti- 
ble, and the eflect certain. 'J'he 7noral forces must continue to exert 
their full eflect, because they cannot become quiescent, ivhilc the 
Christian icorld is dependent upon slave labor anmtally,* 

For cotton, to the amount of . . . . 1, 101, S.'^O, 800 pounds. 
For coff'ee, to the amount of ... . 338,240,000 
For sugar, at least 1,220,000,000 

and largely for many odier articles of prime necessity. That com- 
mercial considerations are beginning to act, in the direction of 
African amelioration, with much urgency, is easily shown. The 
increased prodtic/ion of coffee and cotton, throughout the world, is 
by no means keeping pace with their increased consumption. In 
former years, there was often a large stock of coflee remaining on 
hand at the close of each year. But latterly the increased consump- 
tion has been so rapid that it has gained on the production, and left a 
o-reatly diminished stock at the year's end. The deficit of coffee in 
the markets for 1849 advanced the price very largely, and the supply 
for the present year, as estimated by the most competent authorities,! 
will be 70,000,000 pounds beloiv the present known consumption of 
Europe and the United States. 

The extensive range of statistics which have been presented, in 
relation to the production of cotton, have been mostly taken from the 
London Economist, for January 1850; and we must allow its able 
editor to sum up the resuUs of his elaborate investigations.^ He 
says : § 

" Now. bearing in mind that the figures in the above tables arc, 
with scarcely an exception, ascertained facts, and not estimates, let 
us sum the conclusions to which they have conducted us ; conclu- 
sions sufhcient, if not to alarm us, yet certainly to create much 
uneasiness, and to suggest great caution on the part of all concerned, 
directly or indirectly, in the great manufacture of England. 

" 1 That our supply of ( otton from all quarters, [excluding the 
United States,) has for many years been decidedly, though irregularly, 
decreasing. 

" 2. That our supply of cotton from all quarters, (including the 
United States,) available for home consumption, has of late years 

*See Present Lecture, p. 30. t Unnt's Merchant's Magazine, Aug. 1850. 
i Page 35. § The italics are his own. 



56 Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 

been falling off at the rate of 400,000 pounds a week, while our con- 
sumption has heeii increasing during the same period at the rate of 

144,000 pounds a week. 

" 3. That the United States is the only country where the growth 
of cotton is on the increase; and that there even the increase does 
not on an average exceed 3 per cent, or 32,000,000 pounds annually, 
which is barely sufficient to supply the increasing demand for its 
own consumption, and for the continent of Europe. 

" 4. That no stimulus of price can materially augment this annual 
increase, as the planters always grow as much cotton as the negro 
population can pick. 

" 5. That, consequently, if the cotton manufacture of Great Bri- 
tain is to increase at all — on its present footing — it can only be 
enabled to do so by applying a great stimulus to the growth of cot- 
ton in other countries adapted for the culture."* 

The writer also presents the following historical sketch of the 
cotton trade of Englaud, and closes wiih a statement of the reason 
why other countries have diminished their production of cotton. 
It will be seen that it is due to the fact, that they are unable to com- 
pete with the United States in its production. We can supply the 
markets so much cheaper than they are able to do, that our cotton is 
driving theirs from the English market. The writer says : 

" Within the memory of many now living, a great change has 
taken place in ihe countries from which our main bulk of cotton is 
procured. In the infancy of our manufacture our chief supply came 
from tlie Mediterranean, especially from Smyrna and Malta. Neither 
of these places now sends us more than a few chance bags occasion- 
ally. In the last century the West Indies were our principal source. 
In the year 1786, out of 20,01)0,000 pounds imported, 5,000,000 
came from Smyrna, and the rest from the West Indies. In 1848 the 
West Indies sent us only 1,300 bales, (520,000 pounds.) In 1781, 
Brazil began to send us cotton, and the supply thence continued to 
increase, though irregularly, till 1830, since which time it has fallen 
off to one half. About 1822, Egyptian cotton began to come in 
C(msiderable quantities; its cultivation having been introduced into 
that country two years before. The import exceeded 80,000 bales, 
(32,000,000 pounds,) in 1845. The average of the last three years 
has not been a l!iird of that quantity. Cotton has always been 
grown largely in Hindostan, but it did not send much to England till 
about thirty years ago. In the five years, ending in 1824, the yearly 
average import was 33,000 bales; in 1841 it reached 274,000; and 
may now be roughly estimated at 200,000 bales a year, (80,000,000 
pounds.) 

" Now what is the reason why these countries, after having at one 
time produced so largely and so well, should have ceased or curtailed 



*We have not copied all the tables of figures from which these opinions have 
been formed, but only such as were needed in our argument. 



Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 57 

their growtli within recent years ? It is clearly a question of price. 
Let us consider a few of the cases: 



At the close of the years, 



1836-1839 inclusive 

1840-1843 

1844-1848 



Lowest 

price of 

I'ernambuco, 



9l<f 

Id 
bid 



fall 
per 



Lowest 

price of 

Maranhaui 



3G 



Sid 
b^d 
4ld 



Fall Lowest 
per price of 
_-ent. Egyptian 



. ...i lOid 

...: Id 

42 1 bid 



Fall Lowest: Fall 
]3er price of per 
cent. Surat. 



.... 4g,/ 
. ... 34^/ 
43 ' 2id 



40 



"Here, surely, may be read the explanation of the deplorable fall- 
ing off in our miscellaneous supply." 

From these facts, tiius clearly stated by the Economist, and which 
can be supported from many otiier authorities, it is plain that there 
are at least two cominodilies, Coffee and Cotton, which are not sup- 
plied in adequate quantities, et'en i';?/ the combined efforts of bof/i free 
and slave labor; nor can the commercial demand, especially for cot- 
ton, be met but by an extension of its cultivation to other co2(nlries 
not engaged in its production. 

Cotton, is so essential to England, that she must have a supply 
upon tvhich she can depend. A short crop in the United States, 
like that of 1847, or the occurrence of any event which would di- 
minish our production to any extent, would affect the commercial 
and manifacturing interests of Great Britian most seriously — so 
seriously, indeed, that, as a wise government, she is bound to protect 
herself against such a contingency. The truth of this assertion is 
made apparent, at once, on taking a view of the value of her exports 
of cotton goods, as compared witii those of her other manufactures. 

Exports of Cotton Goods, by England, in the years slated. 



1834* 
1835* 
1836* 



$102,567,930 

110,498,665 

• 153,014,560 



1837* value 

1848t " 
1849t " • 



$102,940,410 
114,406,000 
139,453,970 



If'oollen Goods. 
18481 value . $32,554,815 | 1849t value . $42,096,650 

Silk Manufactures. 
1848t value . $2,940,585 | 1849t value . $5,001,785 

LJnen Manifactures. 
1848t value . $16,481,190 | 1840t value . $20,517,215 

Truly, her Cotton Manufactures is the right arm of England, be- 
cause it is the principal element in sustaining her commerce. This 
great leading interest, then, she will never consent to sacrifice. But 
it is now threatened with «»; insufficient supply of the rem material. 
The efforts to extend the cultivation of cotton in Tndia, by native labor, 
have been abortive ; that for introducing it into the heart of Africa, by 
the agency of white men, at the time of the Niger expedition, proved 
disastrous ; and the British government is now anxiously looking 



'.M'Cullough, vol. 1, p. C.')4. fLondon Economist, Feb. 1850, p. 196, 



98 Preserit Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 

abroad for the means of placing its cotton manufactures in a condition 
of greater security. The diminishing production in all other countries, 
but ours, is claiming to her. when she considers that the increased 
production in the United States, has been, and will probably continue 
to be, only equal to the increase of the slave population — viz : 3 per 
cent, per annum* — and that this increased production is all required 
by the increased demand consequent upon the multiplication of 
spindles and looms in the United States and on the Continent of 
Europe. It must also be noticed, that the demand for cotton fabrics 
is increasing in proportion to the increase of wealtii and the extension 
of civilization. Without an increased supply of the raw material. 
Great Britain, therefore, cannot participate in the advantages of this 
increasing demand, and must suffer loss. This is a position she will 

*At a subsequent date, from that before quoted, the London Economist, 
prompted by the suggestions of many English friends, resumed the consideration 
of the subject of tlie probable increase of the ratio of cotton production in the 
United States. It had been urged, that by the transfer of the slave population 
from other districts and other pursuits to that of cotton, the ratio of increase 
might be augmented so that tiie production in the United States should be made 
to equal the increasing consumption. But the conclusion arrived at is adverse 
to this view, and his opinion strengthened that the United States cannot meet 
the growing demands of commerce. 

But there is one consideration which the Economist has overlooked, and which 
seems to have been but seldom noticed, that will be found to present an impassa- 
ble barrier to the unlimited extension of cotton production in the United States. 
We refer to the Geulogy of the cotton region of this country; and we do so be- 
cause the importance of the facts we state will be understood in England. 

Public duties have taken us over many parts of the cotton growing States, 
including North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, and Alabama. 
A considerable portion of the uplands of the three first-named States, are com- 
posed of Primary rocks, having often but a light covering of soil, which, from its 
loose porous nature, on cultivation, is easily swept away by heavy rains, or soon 
becomes exhausted by a succession of crops. The more common plan of renew- 
ing such exhausted lands, is to abandon their cultivation until a new growth of 
timber, arising and maturing, and shedding its foliage from year to year, restores 
a new soil, to be again cultivated and again abandoned. There are lands in North 
Carolina which have been thus turned out and re-enclosed three or four times 
since the settlement of the country. 

Another portion of these Slates consists of the sands, clays, marls, &c., of the 
Tertiary formation, some of which furnish more permanent soils than the Pri- 
mary; but all of which are liable to exhaustion, to a greater or less extent, under 
cultivation, and demand vtaiiuring to keep them productive. 

The valleys are mostly of AUitinal deposites, and often of inexhaustible fertility. 
And last, there is a limited extent of these States composed of the Chalk, or 
Rotten Limestone, as it is locally called. This formatiou usually affords rich soils. 

In Mississippi and Alabama, and the cotton growing portion of Tennessee, the 
Primary rocks do not appear; but the Silurian, Dewnian, and Carboniferous 
limestones, sandstones, and shales, mostly constitute the highlands. Li the lime- 
stone districts the soils are generally rich, and, with proper attention to manur- 
ing, will remain inexhaustible. The sandstone and shale districts of course 
afford soils liable to exhaustion, unless recourse is had to luninp as well as man- 
uring. A considerable portion of the surface, in the mountainous and hilly 
regions, occu])ied by these formations, is too rugged and rocky for cultivation. 

The less elevated districts of these States, are composed of alternate beds of 
pure sands and clays, and of ferruginous sands and clays, and marlite, of the 
Tertiary formation ; or the massive Chalk deposites ; or of Diluvium, Post- 
Diluvium ( ?) and Alluvium. The soils of the Tertiary are very variable in their 



Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 59 

not long occupy — that she does noi need to occupy — because she can 
release herself from it. 

But in the efforts hitherto made by England, and seconded by other 
Christian nations, she has been driven from measure to measure — 
each seeming to promise success, and each, in succession, partially 
or totally failing — until this moment, when commercial considera- 
tions are pres.-ing, with their strongest force, for the extension of 
cotton cultivation to other countries than those now engaged in its 
production. Now, the most remarkable feature in the partial successes 
and complete failures of the national schemes for the destruction of 
the slave trade, and kindred evils, is the evidence they afford of a 
superintending Providence, overruling in the affairs of men for the 
accomplishment of His own purposes through the agency of individ- 
uals or nations. It now begins to appear, as clear as the sun at 

qualities — the clay and sandy strata soon becoming exhausted and the ferruginous 
and marly portions often being very durable. The chalk supplies some of the 
richest soils known, but in places having only a thin covering of soil and being 
nearly pure carhnnate of lime, in dry seasons, the cotton, as the planters express 
it, is often burnt out. With abundance of manure, this formation can be kept 
perpetually fertile. It is of considerable extent in Mississippi and Alabama- 
The fertility of the Alluvium of the valleys is, of course, mostly inexhaustible- 
I'he Diluvium is of limited range nnd the Post-Diluvium more extensive- Both 
afford some good soils and much that are soon exhausted. 

The indispensable article of manure, throughout the three States first named, 
is difficult to obtain. The cultivation of cotton affords nothing but the meager 
supply of its own seed for restoring the fertility of the soil, and this seed is mostly 
used on the corn crop. The chief remaining method of supplying manures, is 
tedious and expensive, and is accomplished by collecting the falling leaves from 
the forest trees of the mountains or nearest uncultivated lauds. These are 
thrown in bulk into the farm yards, where cattle are confined, until sufficiently 
rotted and intermixed with excrement, when the mass is strewed in the drills 
during the planting of the cotton croj). 

Manuring has not yet been much resorted to in the fresher lands of the south 
western States. All these lands, except the Alluvium, in all these States, will 
need manures to sustain their fertility. But in cultivating cotton exclusively, 
manures, iu sufiicient quantities, cannot be produced, as they may in grain-growing 
districts, to keep up the productiveness of the lands ; and, consequently, the 
production of cotton cannot be increased in a ratio much beyond that of the 
present. If cotton only is cultivated, the lands become exhausted; and if a sys- 
tem of rotation of crops be adopted, to prevent the exhaustion of the soil, the 
quantity of cotton is diminished. It will be amusing to the English Scientific 
Agriculturist to know, that so far as any reference is had to the restoration of 
the fertility of the soil, in the Carolinas, by a change of crops, the system of 
rotation has been Oitton and Vine '. Cotton and Vine '. ! Arkansas and Texas 
possess nearly the same geological characteristics as Georgia, Mississippi, and 
Alabama. 

Without entering into further details, we are convinced that, as a Geologist, 
we hazard but little in saying, that a considerable portion of the cotton lands, of 
the older southern States, must continue to wear out under constant cultivation; 
and that similar results, though less rapid in their operation, owing to differ- 
ences in their Geology, must also follow in the newer States ; and that, therefore, 
the diminution iu the quantity of lands that will remunerate the cultivator, though 
for the present not equal to the quantity of new lands brought into use, will, 
neverthi'less, reach to such an extent as to render it impossible, for any yreat 
number of years, to increase the production of cotton much beyond the present 
ratio of three per cent, per annum. 



60 Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 

noonday, that all these combinations of events — succeeding as they 
have done, each other — have tended to one grand result, worthy of the 
wisdom of Deity ; and that result the involving of the principal nations 
of Christendom in such difficulties and perplexities— all seeming to be 
the natural fruits of their former connection with African oppression — 
as must impel them forward, from necessity, moral and commercial, 
to the civilization of Africa. 

The London Economist, in the article before quoted, after having 
shown that Brazil, Egypt, and the East Indies, cannot be relied upon 
to meet the wants of the English manufacturers, says : 

"Our hopes lie in a very different direction ; we look to our West 
Indian, African, and Australian colonies, as the quarters from which, 
would government only afford every possible facility, we might, ere 
long, draw such a supply of cotton, as would, to say the least, make 
the fluctuations of the American crop, and the varying proportions of 
it which falls to our share, of far less consequence to our prosperity 
than they now are." 

But we must hasten to a conclusion. Commercial considerations, 
of overwhelming force, are impelling England to powerful efforts to 
secure to herself a certain and adequate supply of cotton. This 
she cannot obtain but in promoting its growth in other countries 
than those now producing it. The West Indies, in their present 
circumstances — nor until the missionaries now laboring there succeed 
in elevating the people, and more equal laws prevail — cannot supply 
this demand, nor even then without an increase of population. There 
will, therefore, be only two fields remaining, Australia and Africa. 
Of the two, without entering into detail, we must insist that Africa is 
the more promising, and success in it the more certain ; not only from 
the character and abundance of its population, but because the moral 
forces will be exerted in behalf of Africa more fully than for Australia. 
The reason is obvious : though Australia may be adapted to cotton, 
its cultivation there, and the civilization of its natives, cannot be made 
to act so directly and efficiently upon the slave trade, as the promotion 
of its growth will do in Africa. And, besides this important consid- 
eration, the population of Australia, including emigrants and convicts 
transported thence, is only 300,000 — a number too insignificant to 
accomplish much in cotton cultivation after producing necessary arti- 
cles of subsistence. In the native population of Australia, "human 
nature wears its rudest form," and they are declared to be, both phy- 
sically and intellectucdly, the most degraded of any savage tribes. 
Their numbers have been estimated at 100,000,* and it may safely be 
said, that it is useless to take them into the account in estimating 
free labor agencies for tropical cultivation. It must be apparent, 
therefore, that both the moral forces and commercial considerations, 
operating in England in behalf of an extended Cotton cultivation, 
must be directed to Africa, almost exclusively, and, in turning to 
Africa, must, necessarily, be concentrated upon Liberia as the great 

center of action. 

* Encyclopedia of Geography, vol. 3, p. 127. 



Present delations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 61 

Thus stands the Cotton question in England. Her supply of that 
article Irom the United States has reached its maximum, andfrom all 
other quarters has been steadil} diminishing; placing her under the 
necessity of securing, irom Liberia, the demands of her increasing 
consumption. In the productioii of Sugar and Colfee in Africa, 
Great Britain is not so deeply interested — her chief supplies of these 
articles being obtained from her colonies. But from moral and com- 
mercial considerations she would prefer to substitute 146,000,000 
lbs, of Liberia Sugar for that amount of slave labor product now con- 
sumed by her; because she desires to discountenance slaverv, and 
because freemen in Liberia will need more of her fabrics, in exchang-e, 
than the Brazilian planters will purchase for their half-naked slaves. 
We may, therefore, rely upon England as the fast friend of Liberia 
and of African civilization. 

Li the United States the moral forces have long been operatinor 
"with great efficiency for African civilization. The commercial con- 
siderations are now also beginning to be felt with a good decree of 
power.* On this subject, however, we cannot at present enlaro-e, 
but must be content with calling special attention to one point. 

The great element in the United States, for the promotion of Afri- 
can civilization, consists in our industrious and intelligent free colored 
population. The facts presented in the present Lecture, widi the 
inducements previously existing, should incline them to flock to Africa. 
In Liberia, the colored man has secured to him all the privileges of a 
freeman. There he can have schools and colleges for the education 
of his children, and enjoy civil and religious liberty. He can assist 
in the great work of African civilization, and aid in destroying the 
slave trade. He has there a fair field for the acquisition of wealth, 
and the enjoyments it secures. That these promises are not illusive, 
but will be fultilled, is easily proved. Our investigations show, that 
the demand for an increased amount of Cotton, alibrds a sfuarantv 
that the labor of the Liberians would pay, if directed to its produc- 
tion. The increasing demand for Coffee cannot be supplied but by 
its cultivation in Liberia, or by an increase of slaves in Brazil, and a 
corresponding increase of the slave trade. The consumption of this 
article has increased in a ratio of Jive per cent, per annum. The 
demand for 1850 is estimated at 630,000,000 lbs. The production 
of 1849 was only 426,000.000 lbs., and the stock of old Coflee on 
hand but 113,000.000 lbs., leaving a deficit for the present year, 1850, 
of 70,000,000 Ibs.t Brazil now supplies over two-Jifths of the whole 
amount of Coflee consumed, and cultivates it at a cost one-Udrd less 
than other countries. But she cannot extend her cultivation at pres- 
ent, for want of slaves, and sliould Great Britain compel her to sus- 
pend the slave trade, which is probable, there must be a diminution 
of her production. Its cultivation in other countries, where it has 
been declining, cannot be revived for many years. t It is almost 

* See the Report of a Committee of Congress on the establishment of a line 
of steam vessels between the United States and Liberia. 

t Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, Aug., 1850. X Ibid. 



Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 



certain, therefore, that the production of Coffee within the present 
limits of its cuUivation, can do no more than make up the deficiency 
now existing, and keep up the supply to the present demand of 630,- 
000,000 lbs. annually ; and it is more than probable that even this 
cannot be eflected, because, if the crop of 1850 only equals that of 
1849, the deficit for 1851 will be 200,000,000 lbs., being nearly 
equal to one-third the consumption. This, then, will leave at least 
the increasing demand of five per cent, per annum to be supplied by 
Liberia; and, behold, what a vast source of wealth even this one 
article opens up to the citizens of that Republic ! 

'I'he fohowing tabular statement, prepared at our request, by Mr. 
J. M. M. Wilson, a graduate of Miami University, presents at one 
view, the extent and ' alue, during the next fifteen years, of this Jive 
per cent, ratio of annual increasing consumption of Coffee: 

Tabular Statement of the avwunt and value of Coffee which will be demanded hy 
a ratio of increase of Jive per cent, per annum on the present consumption. 





Amount required. 


Annual increase. 


Increase over 


Value — Dollars, 




lbs. 


lbs. 


ISaO. 


at 6 ct3. per lb. 


1850, 
1851, 


630,000,000 
661,500,000 








'si.Voo.ooo' 


"* 31,500,600' 


$1,890,666' 


1852, 


729,575,000 


33,075,000 


64,575,000 


3,874,500 


1853, 


729,303,750 


34,729,750 


99, .303,750 


5,958,225 


1854, 


765,768.937 


39,465,185 


135,768,937 


8,146,136 


1855, 


804,057,384 


38,288,447 


174,057,384 


10,443,443 


1856, 


844,260,252 


40,202,869 


214,260,253 


12,855,615 


1857, 


986,473,265 


42,213,013 


250,473,265 


15,388,395 


1858, 


930,786,928 


44,323,063 


300,796,928 


18.047,815 


1859, 


977,336,674 


46,539,740 


347,336,674 


20,840,200 


1860, 


1,026,503,508 


48,866,834 


399,203,508 


23,772,210 


1861, 


1,077,513,233 


51,310,175 


447,513,233 


26,850,793 


1862, 


1,131.388,895 


53,875,662 


501,388,895 


30,083,333 


1863, 


1,187,958,340 


56,569,445 


557,958,-340 


33,477,500 


1864, 


1,247,356,257 


59,397,917 


617,356,257 


36,841,375 


1865, 


1,309,724,070 


62,367,813 


679,724,070 


40,783,307 



We should not have introduced this table, but for its value in 
affording a true idea of the growing commercial importance of the 
cultivation of the lands of Liberia. It shows that the annual ratio 
of increase, aside from the large deficit in the supply of Coflee, is at 
this moment, worth nearly two millions of dollars, and that in fifteen 
years it will be worth over forty millions ! I The increased demand 
for Cotton will be of nearly equal importance. To this must be 
added her sugar, indigo, dye-woods, palm oil, ivory, &;c., &c., and 
the new Republic assumes an importance, in the commercial world, 
only surpassed by the moral influence she is destined to exert over 
the whole continent. Indeed, her commercial progress already has 
been astonishing. Five or six years ago, her exports were about 
$100,000, but now they are $500,000, and rapidly increasing. Libe- 
rians comprehend the advantageous position they have secured, and 



Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 63 

are eager to develop (he resources of their country. Their greatest 
want is men. They appeal to us for inckistiious, intelligent, enter- 
prising, upright emigrants, to aid them in unftilding to the world the 
long-hidden treasures of Africa, and to participate in the advantages 
that her riches will bestow. Are not colored men, in this country, 
able to comprehend the value of these resources ? Must we con- 
clude that they will remain indifferent, and reject the rich inherit- 
ance offered in Liberia, and tell the world that they have less 
foresight, energy, and enterprise, than other races of men? We 
cannot believe this. 

But the discussion of this proposition must be closed. Our Re- 
public occupies a very peculiar and important position. We have 
the agents necessary to effect the moral regeneration of Africa; and 
if they be treated as men, and liberal provision be made for emigra- 
tion, by the States and the General Government, our intelligent colored 
men will not shrink froin duty. 

A crisis has arrived in the commercial world, in which there is an 
inadequate supply of two of the leading staples upon which slave 
labor IS employed. Free and slave labor combined have failed to 
supply the consumption, and an increase of price has occurred suffi- 
cient to give a stimulus to their production. This increased produc- 
tion must occur either in Brazil and Cuba, or free labor must be 
sufficiently sUmulated to meet the demand. But where and how is 
this to be accomplished ? There is little hope of its soon occurring 
in the East or West Indies. Already at one point in Liberia, nearly 
30,000 coffee trees are maturing, and will soon afford 300,000 lbs. a 
year for export. There might, and would have been, had the people 
of the United States performed their duty, 700 such plantations in 
Liberia at this moment, ready to supply 200,000,000 lbs. of Coffee 
annually. Had the growth of Liberia not been retarded by the nar- 
row policy that opposed Colonization, it requires litde discernment 
to perceive, that this increasing demand might have been supplied by 
the labor of the freemen of the African Republic, instead of being 
left as a tempting prize, to be seized by the Brazilian planter and the 
African slave trader, 'i'he crisis now existing, therefore, demands 
the united exertions of all the friends of humanity, bodi at the North 
and the South, to push forward, with the utmost energy, the work of 
Colonization, as the only means of checking the extension of slavery 
and the slave trade. The wants of commerce demand, and must 
receive, an adequate supply of Coffee and Cotton, and we must 
either secure that supply from Liberia, or submit to see an increase 
of cruelty and oppression in Cuba and Brazil. 

We might greatly enlarge upon the extent to which moral forces 
and commercial considerations are pressing the English and American 
people to promote African civilization, through the agency of Liberia, 
but what has been said must suffice. 

Vn. That all these agencies and influences being brought to bear 
upon the Civilization of Africa, from the nature of its soil, climate, 



64 Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 

products, and population, we are forced to bff.ieve tliat a mighty 
people will ultimately rise upon that continent, taking rank with 
the most powerful nations of the earth, and vindicate the character 
of the A.frican race before the world. 

We cannot, at present, enter upon the discussion of this proposi- 
tion. It includes a field of great interest, which would be amply 
broad for a whole discourse. But we must leave it as an expression 
of our anticipation of the ultimate destiny of Africa, and close with 
a few remarks. 

Our last Lecture presented the African under the influence of de- 
grading superstition, and the brutalizing efl'ects of the slave trade. 
The picture was dark indeed. In the present Lecture we had designed 
to present many evidences of his nobleness of character, when such 
debasing causes do not influence his actions. But we must defer 
them, and limit ourselves to a few points more closely connected with 
the subjects we have been discussing. 

It has been fashionable to charge upon the slaveholder equal crim- 
inality with the African kidnapper and slave trader, because the fore- 
fathers of the slaves held in bondage were originally brought from 
Africa. As our diploma does not bear date from Mount Ebal,^ and 
we are not trained to cursing, we shall be excused for speaking more 
calmly upon this point, and taking a more comprehensive view of its 
relations. Let tfie criminality of the slaveholder be what it may, it 
will be proper to examine the facts and ascertain whether others are 
not equally implicated in the guilt. Slaveholders are now producing, 
annually, more than eleven liundred millions of pounds of Cotton, 
and more than twelve hundred and twenty millions of pounds of Su- 
gar, and nearly three hundred and forty millions of pounds of Coffee. 
Do they consume these articles themselves ? Are these products so 
polluted that the world will neither touch, taste, nor handle them? 
Not at all. The great struggle everywhere is as to who shall obtain 
the greatest quantity of them, who make the greatest profit, and who 
derive most comfort from their consumption. This is especially 
true of London, Liverpool, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Paris, Vienna, 
Berlin, Brussels, Hamburgh, Stockholm, Amsterdam, and St. Peters- 
burgh, as well as of Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Pittsburgh, 
and Cincinnati. The early abolitionists endeavored to prove, that 
the slaveholder was equally guilty with the slave trader and kidnap- 
per, because the former received his slaves from the hands of the lat- 
ter; and that those who now hold in bondage the descendants of the 
stolen slaves, are equally guilty with the original kidnapper. Ac- 
cording to this logic, that " the fathers have eaten sour grapes and the 
children's teeth are set on edge," is a true proverb — and the men of 
the seventh generation, involved in an evil without their consent, by 
the actions of their forefathers, are equally guilty with its originators. 
If this be sound logic, then the manufacturer who buys slave grown 
Cotton, and makes it into cloth, is equally guilty with the slaveholder 



* Deut. 27 : 18. 



Present Relalions of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 65 

himself who produces it. But the iniplicatioii in guilt, if guilt there 
be, does not stop here. He who purchases and wears the goods 
manufactured from slave grown cotton, is also implicated ; and as 
there is annually consumed over eleven hundred millions of pounds 
of slave grown cotton, and baiely seventy-eight millions of free labor 
growth, it follows tliat all Christendom is involved in the same con- 
demnation. 'J'hese facts serve to illustrate one of our positions — 
that the Christian world cannot avoid consuming the products of 
slave labor, and thereby encourage slavery and the slave trade, but by 
civilizing Africa. 

There is one plan to avoid this great evil, and in an hour free our- 
selves from it, and that is to burn down all the cotton factories in 
Europe and America, and sufler none to be erected in their stead. 
But what would the world gain by the sacrifice? or rather, what 
would it lose ? Commerce, the great agent in the world's civiliza- 
tion, would be destroyed. A check upon commerce is a check upon 
civilization. Human progress and human happiness materially de- 
pend upon commerce. But it is not practicable, even were it desi- 
rable, to destroy these factories to eradicate slavery. It is impossible 
to destroy them. The yj€c?<«/rtr(/ considerations involved are more 
powerl'ul than the moral. The owners of these factories will con- 
tinue to manufacture slave grown cotton ; commerce ^^;^7/ continue to 
transmit the products of the looms to every corner of the world; 
and the earth's population will continue to wear these fabrics. The 
slave grown sugar and coflee will also be consumed ; because a sup- 
ply from free labor cannot be obtained. As it is impracticable, then, 
to prevent the consumption of slave grown coffee, sugar, and cotton, 
on account of the pecuniary profit and personal comfort they afford 
to mankind, so it is alike impossible to abolish slavery while the 
world continues to consume the products of its labor. Our own 
view, as expressed in the outset, is, that the whole Christian world 
is involved in this evil. Is there any more criminality in superin- 
tending [he produclion of slave grown cotton, than in overseeing its 
manufacture, or in being clothed with the fabrics into which it has 
been transformed? Is the Louisiana or Cuban planter mure criminal 
in raising, and sending to market, his crop of sugar, than the aboli- 
tionist of London or Boston is for sweetening his coffee, his tea, or 
his poundcake with the same article ? Is the Brazilian slaveholder 
more guilty for furnishing coffee, by the labor of his slaves, than the 
merchant is for purchasing and selling it to all the anti-slavery men 
in Ohio? Are they innocent for greedily drmking it, knowing it to 
be procured by the lash of the task-master? If coffee were not 
consumed, none would be raised. If sugar were not used, none 
would be made. If cotton were not manufactured and worn, none 
would be grown. Hence slavery would be abolisiied ! Who then 
.supports slavery and the slave trade, but the one who consumes 
its products ? We leave these questions to every man's conscience. 
In the present crisis we would approach our southern brethren in 
the language of the sons of Jacob, and say : " ffe are verdy guilty 
6 



66 Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 

concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul, when 
he besought us, and we would not hear ; therefore is this distress 
come upon us;" and in the spirit of christian liberality, propose 
some plan that would equalize the burden of relieving the country 
from the distracting evds of slavery. Capitalists at the south buy 
negroes because the investment is profitable, and they can no more 
be expected to emancipate their slaves, while their labor \?, profitable, 
than northern men can be expected to burn their factories or banks 
with all their valuable contents. 

But what is there to prevent a change in this condition of things ? 
Must it remain forever? Must slavery, acknowledged on all hands, 
except by a very few, to be an evil, continue as a perpetual source 
of discord, endangering the safety of the Union, or affording a 
fruitful theme of excitement for fanatics and demagogues ? Men 
may transfer their property, at pleasure, into cash, wliether it be in 
lands, manufactories, or slaves. They are governed only by interest 
and inclination in such matters. Convince the slaveholder that he cna 
do better than to invest his money in slaves, and he will not buy them. 
But when the investment is made, and you ask him to emancipate, 
without compenmtion, he considers it an unre;isonable demand. 
Emancipation in the West Indies, he knows, has resulted in pecun- 
iary ruin to the master, and has increased slavery in the aggregate, 
instead of diminishing it. It is of the first importance, therefore, in 
the adoption of any emancipation schemes, that an adequate number 
of efficient free laborers should be secured to supply the place of the 
slaves. Unless this can be done with safety to the planter, he will 
not risk the change ; and unless the plan be such an one as will not 
create a fresh demand for slaves elsewhere, and produce an increase 
of the slave trade, humanity would forbid its adoption. Then devise 
a plan by which a productive free labor can be substituted for slave 
labor, and the master receive compensation for his slaves, and he 
would, no doubt, gladly free himself from the inconveniences and 
want of safety of his position. 

There arc many reasons why such a change would be acceptable 
to the South. A feeling favorable to emanci()ation, independent of 
compensation, has long existed there, and legislative action has been 
deen-.ed necessary to prevent too great an increase of free blacks. 
The laws forbidding emancipation, except on condition of the 
removal of the freed man, have been approved by the friends of 
emancipation ; because the two leading objects they have in view, are, 
to better the condition of the slave, and to throw their own sons in a 
positicm of self-dependence, that would lead them to industry. To 
secure both these objects, demands the removal of the colored peo- 
ple. But as no efficient system exists in the slave States, for the 
encouragement of white labor, and as none can be adopted while the 
blacks remain, many of the enterprising whites, of small means, have 
yearly emigrated to the free States. This has been most injurious to 
the slave Slates. Each white man, who emigrated, was a loss to 
them and a gain to the free States. Thousands upon thousands of 



Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 67 

the best citizens of Oliio, Indiana, and Illinois, are from the slave 
States, and abandoned tlieir former homes on account of their dislike 
to place iheir sons, as laborers, on an equality with slaves, and in the 
midst of the demoralizing influences that slavery generates. It is 
this tide of emigration which is so seriously checking southern pros- 
perity and keeping the numerical strength of the slave States so much 
below that of tlie free. But this dislike of freemen to labor on au 
equality vvitb slaves, influences not only the southern white man of 
moderate means, but it prevents foreign emigrants from choosing their 
homes in tlie "sunny south" instead of the chilly north. Neither 
can (mancipation, alone, check this tide of wliite emigration from 
the slave States, nor attract the foreign emigrant to them. The free 
colored pe()[)le exert as paralyzing an eff'ect upon industry there, as 
the presence of the slaves ; and, to secure the objects aimed at, colo- 
nization must be connected with emancipation. This eflect of the 
presence of einancipated slaves, upon the industry of the wliites, is 
not confined alone to the United States. It has been a legitimate 
result of African slavery wherever it has existed. According to Mr. 
Bigelow, whose letters have been already quoted, it has been pecu- 
liarly the case in Jamaica. In summing up the causes which have 
continued to depress the prosperity of tliat island, since emancipation, 
he places, first in the libt, the dislike of the whites to labor with a 
people of servile origin, and the aptness of the blacks to adopt their 
idle habits. His first cause of industrial depression is thus stated : 

" 1. Tlie degradation of labor, in consequence of the yet compar- 
atively recent existence of negro slavery upon the Island, which 
excludes the white population from almost every department of pro- 
ductive industry, and begets a public opinion calculated to discourage, 
rather than promote industry among the colored population." 

Mr. Rigelow is of the opinion that the English Government takes 
this view of the subject ; and, with the design of correcting the evils 
and restoring the prosperity of the Island, is contemplating the with- 
drawal of the while population, and allowing the colored people to 
become t'e proprietors of the soil. Now, if it be so, that the pros- 
perity of the West India Islands demands a separation of the races, 
where it is the boast that so litile prejudice against color exists, how 
much more imperiously is the separation of the blacks and whites 
demanded in this country, where prejudice against color is supposed 
to be so much stronger; but which, in fact, may be called by another 
name, because it is founded, not so much in relation to color as to 
the habits engendered by slavery, and to which, color is supposed 
to be a certain index, as it reveals the servile origin of its possessor. 
Colon'zation is the true remedy, to the colored people, for this social 
evil, as it is also the true means of stimulating the industry of the 
whites where slavery has existed. 

But there is another depressing cause, weighing down the colored 
man, for wliich Colonization is the only remedy. While he remains 
among those to whom he, or his fathers, were formerly in l)ondMge, 
his presence not only continues to degrade labor, and prevent industry 



68 Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 

among the whites, but he continues to feel a sense of inferiority that 
retards improvement. The remedy for this, is his removal from the 
scenes that remind him of his former servile condition, and especially 
his separation from the race which held him in bondage. This opinion 
of the unfavorable condition in which the colored people are placed, 
is becoming general. It is a great truth, which is fast forcing itself 
upon minds that hitherto would not admit it for a moment. Even the 
National Era, the Abolition organ, has been led to embrace views 
corresponding so closely with this as to be its equivalent. In an 
article headed " Free Labor versus Slave Labor," the editor expresses 
the opinion, that emancipation in the United States would lead to the 
concentration of the colored people in the South, and the displace- 
ment of the laboring whites, and produce beneficial results. He 
says : 

" The aggregation of the negroes would necessarily build up a 
public opinion of their own, a feeling of nationality, which is es- 
sential to the development of character. This they never can have 
while dispersed over so wide an extent of country, among an 
unfriendly people, who trample on their rights and treat them as 
outcasts."* 

It will be apparent, on slight examination, that the aggregation of , 
the colored people and the displacement of the whiles, must be a 
very different thing in the United States from what it would be in 
Jamaica. The removal of 16,000 whites, (about 3,000 families,) in 
that Island, from a colored population of nearly 400,000 persons, 
will be a trifling task compared with the rooting out of the immense 
white population of one-third of the States of this Union J The 
former is practicable, the latter impossible; and the sooner it is dis- 
missed from any part of the public mind the better. 'I'he truth is, 
that the only hope of placing the colored people of the United States 
beyond the influence of those " who trample on their rights and treat 
them as outcasts," and where there would necessarily grow up " a 
public opinion of their own, a feeiing of nationality, ivhich is es- 
sential to the development of character,^'' is not to retain them as 
free laborers in the service of the southern planter, as the Era's 
scheme contemplates, but to afford them the means of reaching Libe- 
ria, where they may, themselves, be the landed proprietors in a 
Republic of their own, instead of remaining here as serfs in the land 
of their former bondage. These are the diflerent destinies that Colo- 
nization and Abolition have in store for the African race. 

But can such a substitution of free labor for slave labor, as we 
have contemplated, be made with equal profit to the southern cap- 
italist? Can there be found a sufficient number of freemen, to 
replace the slaves, so that there shall be no diminution of products 
to serve as a fresh stimulus to slavery and the slave trade el.-ewhere? 
Will southern men, in such circumstances, be willing to emancipate, 
on condition of receiving compensation ? Could the States and the 

* National Era, May 16, 1850. 



Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 69 

General Government provide for llie expenses of the emigration of all 
the colored people ? 

These are the great questions of the day in reference to tlie whole 
subject of emnncipntion. We shall not undertake, formally, to ans- 
wer them. Colonies of foreigners, recently settled in Texas, have 
commenced the cultivation of cotton without tlie aid of slaves. The 
agent of the "Free Produce Society," Levi Coffin, of Cincinnati, 
assures us that these colonists, together with many other persons 
thus engaged in cotton raising at the South, find it a profitable busi- 
ness, and that they can fully compete with their neighbors who em- 
ploy slave labor. From personal observation, we are prepared to 
say, that the value of the proceeds of small farms, on which but 
few laborers are employed, is twice as great in the North as in the 
South. We have less acquaintance with the operations of the large 
planters at the South, but suppose that the contractors on our public 
works at the North, who employ an equal number of hands, and 
possess equal business talents, after paying full wages, realize the 
greatest profits. We mean to be understood as claiming, that free 
labor, under the most favoring circumstances, is twice as productive 
as slave labor ; and that the southern planters, in substituting an intel- 
ligent white laboring population, and paying full wages, would realize 
a better profit than they do under their present system. With a few 
years' experience, the foreigner is as profitable a laborer as the native 
American. The present annual influx of near a half a million of 
foreigners, into tlie country, would furnish many laborers to the 
South, were the objections to settling there removed. The adoption, 
by the General Government, of a system of emancipation, allowing 
compensation for the slaves, and connecting with it their coloniza- 
tion in Liberia, would at once attract foreigners to the southern 
States, to an extent fully equal to the number of colored people that 
could annually be safely settled in Africa. The number of emi- 
o-rants that can be provided for in Liberia, will be an hundred per 
cent, greater, in proportion to its population, than can be received in 
countries where protection has to be made against winter. In a few 
years that Republic can be prepared to receive an immense emigra- 
tion. The opening of the South to free labor, would give a vast 
stimulus to the spirit of emigration in European coimlries, and bring 
a flood of useful emigrants from their teeming populations ; including 
mechanics, manufacturers, and agricultural laborers, which might 
equal, as soon as desirable, the whole number of our slaves, and 
constitute a boJy (f operatives much more profitable. Europe, at 
present, is annually pouring out more than a half a million of her 
people, without feeliuir any sensible diminution ; nay, without losing 
a tithe of her increase. The greater part of that emigration is to the 
United States; and as there is not such an attractive field furnished 
in the world, to foreign emigrants, as our southern States allbrd. were 
a system adopted for the emigration of the African population, we 
would receive a gready increased number of Europeans. How long 
it would take for three millions of foreign emigrants to find their way 



70 Present Relatiom of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 

into the South, to take the place of the three millions of slaves, we 
cannot say ; but there exists little doubt that their ingress would be 
as rapid as the colored people could possibly leave for Liberia. 

It is thus that free labor might be substituted for slave labor, and 
the slaveholder be rendered more prosperous and happy. The res- 
toration to the planter, by the General Government, of his capital 
invested in slaves, and the introduction of a system of free labor 
which would require a much less outlay of money than the present 
system, would, doubtless, be approved at the South, and a proposition 
of this kind be accepted by acclamation. 

Gentlemen of the Constitutional Convention: 

In closing, we ninst call your attention to the question of making 
provision for the emigration of the colored people of Ohio, or for 
such of them as may, from time to time, desire to remove to Liberia. 
The late purchase of territory for a new colony, by Charles 
McMicKEN, Esq., to be called Ohio in Jlfrira, is attracting the atten- 
tion of the colored people, and considerable anxiety prevails to obtain 
reliable information about Liberia, and especially in relation to the 
lands now offered to them as their future homes. The general feel- 
ing among those who take an interest in this movement, is, that a 
committee of their own choosing, which should be approved by the 
agent of the Colonization Society, shall be sent to explore the country. 
This seems a reasonable request, and should be complied with. 
The Colonization Society have in their offer a larger number of 
slaves than thev can colonize, and we cannot ask that its funds shall be 
diverted from so sacred an object as securing their freedom. The as- 
sistance for our colored people must come from the State itself. But 
the voluntary contributions of individuals are insufficient for this 
purpose, and too precarious to be relied upon. Public sympathy, 
throuifhout the Union, cannot be aroused in behalf of the free col- 
ored people, as it can for the slave, so as to make their removal a 
national question. And yet their agency, as pioneers to aid the 
Liberians in making provision for new emigrants, is essential to the 
success of anv great national emancipation scheme. The cost of 
emigration of the free colored people must, then, be borne by the 
Stales in which they reside. Tliis view has already been adopted 
by some of the Stales. Maryland has established a colony at Cape 
Palmas, upon which she has expended a large sum. Its prosperity 
amply repays her liberality. Virginia, last winter, also made a large 
appropriation, ($30,000 a year,) to colonize her free coloied people. 
But in addition to this, she has levied a poll tax upon them, which 
will, doubtless, lessen the task she has underlaken, by driving over 
upon the adjoining free Slates, all those who do not wish to emigrate. 
Ohio has done nothing yet for colonization. Her receni legislation 
has all been directed so as to invite the largest emigration of colored 
people from abroad.* 

* See first Lecture, pages 19 to 26. 



Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 71 

Taking all the circumstances connected with the siiliject into view, 
it is evident that the means of promoting tlie cause of Colonization 
in Ohio, must be obtained within the Slate, and that an application to 
the Legislature for aid will be necessary. It is all important, then, 
that the question of legislative power to appropriate money for this 
object, be put beyond all dispute. To bring the question of affording 
aid to Colonization directly before the people, for their approval, it is 
respectfully requested on behalf of the friends of that cause, and on 
behalf of the colored people who wish to emigrate, that vou, gentle- 
men, in the discharge of your duties, as members of the Constitu- 
tional Convention, \\''\\\ insert a clause in the new Constitution, 
empowering the Legislature to grant an appropriation of money to 
the American Colonization Society, under such restrictions as will 
best promote the noble enterprise in whicb it is engaged, and encour- 
age the emigration of the colored people from this State to Liberia. 

There is certainly much, at this moment, gentlemen, to excite en- 
couraging hopes for the colored race, and to stimulate their friends to 
forget all minor differences, and press onward to the accomplishment 
of the grand results n«w evidently attainable through Colonization. 
Nor are we left witliout hope, that our own beloved country may yet 
be freed from the reproach of African slavery, whicli has been en- 
tailed upon her by the cupidity of the mother country, 'i'ake a viev/, 
for a moment, of the signs of the times, and the present position of 
affairs. The despotisms of Europe are being shaken to their centers. 
The crowned heads seem to have gained a momentary respite. The 
want of safely in property and life in the old world is greatly stimu- 
lating emigration to tlie new. Here, only, can white men enjoy all 
the rights of freemen, and be brought under the influence of all the 
elements of useful human progress.* The recent vast enlargement 
of our territory, may have been permitted to afford room for the op- 
pressed millions of Europe, who are sighing for peace and for freedom. 
Our national councils have been directed to a peaceful adjustment of 
the questions threatening the safety of tlie Union. The opening up 
of the untold riches of California is placing in the possession of the 
nation the means of accomplishing great things for the world. This 
most singular combination of events, points very significanUy to the 
great work devolving upon the nation. To substitiUe free labor for 
slave labor is in our powpr. To give eompensation to the master 
for his slaves will not be beyond our ability. The foreign emigrants 
pouring into the country will perform the first great work. The 
immense revenues that will hereafter flow into our national treasury 
will enable us to execute the last. Is it doubted ? The appropriatioa 
of an annual sum only equal to half the amount expended in the 
Mexican War, would, in seventeen years, colonize all the slaves, and 
pay to the masters $300 each, for young and old, as compensation. 
To substitute free labor for slave labor need produce no commercial 
derangement with us that would encourage the slave trade or slavery 

* See Lecture Second, page 49. 



72 Present Relations of Free Labor to Slave Labor. 

elsewliore. There noed be no iliinimitioii of products, but the im- 
proved tillaivc would yield an increase. ]'>uffl;uul and France, when 
freeing tlie slaves in their Colonies, found no such tide of intelligent 
foreigners as we are receiving, flowing into dieni, to lake the place of 
their slaves, and prevent a decrease of agricidtural products. We 
can do what no other nation wouhl be capable of doing. It is in our 
power not only to free ourselves from the evil of slavery, and the 
whole world from the necessity of consuming slave-grown products: 
but, in the execution of this great work, to hasten the redemption of 
Africa from barliarism ; and, in doing tiiis, to crush the slave trade 
and slavery everywhere, and establisli our own glorious republic upon 
a foundation as enduring as the everlasting hills. No one, we think, 
can calmly examine the present rehuions of free labor to slave labor, 
in tropical and semi-tropical coinitries, as embodied in the mass of 
{\icts we have collated, and not be convinced that Emancipation in the 
United States, and the ('olonization of the colored people in Liberia, 
to develop its resources and civilize its inhabitants, would give a 
death-blow to the slavery of Cuba and IJrazil, and to African oppression 
ihronghoul the world. And who would not be delighted to aid in 
such a glorious work I Who woulil not be overjoyed to witness 
such a sublime achievement of Republican principle? Who would 
not devoutly adore that Divine Wisdom which had wrought out such 
deliverance for Africa. 

And now, gentlemen, we commit this subject into your hands. 
The lirst step^ in the agency which Ohio should have in this great 
work, must be taken by you. Our lands for die Colony of Ohio in 
Africa, are included in the Gallinas, hitherto the greatest mart of the 
slave trade on that coast. To secure its purchase. Great Britain, with 
profuse liberality, for more than a year, blockaded all its principal 
trading points and thus kept oiT the slave traders until the chiefs and 
kings were induced to sell. That blockade is now raised — the pur- 
chase having been made. The country is once more exposed to the 
approaches of the slave traders, who may again succeed in renewing 
the trallic. This can only be prevented by the settlement of the 
points liable to be visited by them. This territory being in the ofler 
of the colored people of Ohio, will for a time, not be offered to others. 
It is important, therefore, that decisive steps be taken to secure the 
execution of the enteri)rise of establishing an Ohio Colony in Africa. 
The failure of an application to the Legislature, last winter, for aid 
to begin this work, was, in some degree, owing to an opinion held 
by a few of the members, that they bad not constitutional power to 
appropriate money for this object. Our appeal, then, must first be to 
you. The failure to confer upon the Legislature the power for which 
we ask, will leave us in doubt and perplexity, and cast a blight upon 
our prospects, lint tht; insertion of a clause in the Constitution, svich 
as is desired, will ensure Leiiislative action, and may lead the Sl-ate 
to adopt and cherish tiiis oiiVpring oi' benevolence — Ohio in Africa 
— and thus create a new and efhcient agent for the overthrow of 
oppression and the promotion of human liberty. We commend it to 
yovjr care, and to the blessing of the Ruler of Nations. 



-e^ 



A LECTURE 



ON THE 



PRESENT RELATIONS 



OF 



FREE LABOR TO SLAVE LABOR, 



IN TROPICAL AND SEMI-TROPICAL COUNTRIES: 

PRESENTING 

OUTLINE OF THE COMMERCIAL FAILURE OF WEST INDIA EMANCI- 
PATION, AND ITS EFFECTS UPON SLAVERY AND THE SLAVE 
TRADE, TOGETHER WITH ITS FINAL EFFECT UPON 
COLONIZATION TO AFRICA. 

ADDRESSED TO THE 



CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION 
OF THE STATE OF OHIO, 1850. 



I 



By DAVID CHRISTY, 

AGENT OF THE AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETT. 



CINCINNATI: 
PRINTED BY J. A. & U. P. JAMES, 



3TKRE0TYPED DY A. C. JAMES. 



1850 



S-' 



-«e^i 



\ OHIO IN AFRICA. \ 

J TO THE FRIENDS OF THE AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY IN OHIO. i 

i In April, 1848 it was suggested, tlirough the Cincinnati papers, that an efFec- / 

} tual blow miglit be struck at the slave trade, and- liberal provision made for the { 

J settlement of a colony of colored people from Ohio, by purchasing an additional ' 

J portion of territory on the coast of Africa. i 

* This suggestion was responded to by Charles McMicken, Esq., of Ciu- t 
< cinnati, by an offer of sufficient funds to pay for the necessary amount of land J 
I for a Colony of the kind proposed. The Secretary of the Society, the Rev. Wm. J 
J McLain, in his answer to our inquiries, on the 24tii of June following, recom- i 
J mended that the purchase be made northwest of Liberia, so as to include the , 
{ Clallinas, and thus "break up the slave trade in several of its darkest dens." } 
i President Roberts, of Liberia, reached the United States shortly after the plan ' 

* of Mr. McMicken, had been announced, and gave to it his decided appro- / 
/ val. On visiting England, the President explained to Lord Palmerston, and > 
f others, the effect of purchasing territory and settling intelligent colonists in ' 
J Africa ; and succeeded in convincing them that it was the most certain mode of t 
J destroying the slave trade. Samuel Gurney, Esq., who was present, proposed J 
i to extend Mr. McMicken's plan, so as to include all the territory between Sierra $ 
, Leone and Liberia, and pledged $5,000 for that object, being one-half the sum i 
i supposed to be necessary to complete the purchase. / 
i Lord Palmerston, in behalf of the Queen, presented to the President a beau- < 

* tiful armed vessel, of the revenue cutter class, in which to sail home to Liberia, { 
/ and to be retained for the protection of its commerce. An order was also < 
J issued, directing that a part of the British squadron, on the coast of Africa, { 
^ should proceed to blockade all the ports from which slaves have been exported, { 
*f within the district proposed to be purchased, until the chiefs and kings should \ 
J consent to sell their lands to be annexed to Liberia. This blockade has been ' 
i rigidly enforced since that time, and has greatly contributed to the important / 
i result now attained. t 
f Li a communication dated 17th of May last, and recently received at Wash- ' 
J ingtou City, President Roberts announces, that he has completed the purchase ' 
J of the Gallinas and several other tracts, including, witli a trifling exception, the J 
J whole space desired, and that " by this act the coast of Liberia has been extended < 
{ to 700 miles in length, along the whole course of which the slave trade was i 
i formerly carried on to a great extent." J 
] The Rev. Mr. McLain, our Secretary, notified me on the 17th inst., of the i 
J purchase having been made, and that Mr. McMicken has remitted to the Soci- l 
t ety the $5000 which he had pledged to pay for the lands for the Ohio Colony. 5 

* The portion of this territory purchased with the funds of Mr. McMicken, is ( 
designed for the colored people of Ohio, Lidiana, and Illinois ; because their J 
proximity to the Ohio river will enable them to act in concert in any movement ' 
toward emigration ; but it is to take the name of Ohio, j 

With the consummation of this act, a new era in African Colonization com- J 

mences in Ohio. To give greater efficiency to the enterprise in which we are J 

about to engage, the parent Society has appointed a Committee of Correspondence J 

for Ohio, who will be called together as soon as circumstances will permit, to $ 

organize and adopt measures for the promotion of the Colonization cause in > 

the State. The committee appointed by the Society, includes the names of the J 

following gentlemen, viz. : j 



Hon. Jacob Burnet, Cincinnati, 

Charles McMicken, Esq., " 

Rt. Rev. C. P. McIlvaine, D. D., " 
Rev. John T. Brooke, D. D., " 
Rev. N. L. Rice, 

Rev. Samuel R. Wilson, " 

Rev. Samuel W. Fisher, " 

Rev. James P. Kilbreth, " 

Dr. Alexander Guy, " 

RuFUs King, Esq., " 

The interests of the Colonization cause, in Ohio, will hereafter be under the * 
direction of these gentlemen. DAVID CHRISTY, } 

] Agent American Colonization Society, in Ohio. t 



Rev. Prof. Robinson, Cincinnati, J 

Rev. J. Hall, D. D., Dayton, | 

Thomas Parrott, Esq., " 5 

Hon. S. Mason, Springfield, I 

Rev. James Hoge, D. D., Columbus, * 

Gov. S. Ford, " i 

Hon. H. H. Leavitt, Steubenville, i 

Rev. H. G. CoMiNGO, " J 

H. Safford, Esq., Zanesville. J 







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